Randall Ezno - Mass Effect Infiltrator: No Step Backward
by Steve Phillips
Summary: A series of stories inspired by the Mass Effect spinoff game, Mass Effect: Infiltrator. It starts with "The Monster They Sent," which is my version of the events at the very end of the Mass Effect: Infiltrator game. The other stories are about the road to redemption and recovery for Randall Ezno, Inali Renata, and their former Cerberus squad mates.
1. The Monster They Sent

_This is a one-shot story inspired by the Mass Effect spinoff game, "Mass Effect: Infiltrator." This is my headcanon version of the events at the end of the game._

 _Music that inspired me while writing the action scene: "Eon," by Ninja Tracks_

 _Music that inspired me while writing the end moments: "New Horizon" by Ninja Tracks_

 **The Monster They Sent**

 _Randall Ezno_

Desert planet LV426 presented a forbidding sight even from orbit. Randall Ezno didn't expect the view to improve when he landed.

The power cells and fuel indicators on his stolen shuttle flashed warnings. The shuttle had just enough power to reach the automated mining station on LV426, and not a moment too soon. Randall's eyes narrowed as the shuttle crossed the horizon and into daylight, offering a clear view of the desert planet's barren landscape below. The shuttle smoothly transitioned from space into the planet's atmosphere. He flexed his jaw and thought of the last few days.

 _Inali's dead. Jordan and the rest of my team are probably dead. The sooner the Alliance gets me out of here, the better_. _I'll make the Director and his Cerberus cronies pay with their hides for what they've done, and that Director will beg me to kill him._

Randall was marooned on LV426 until his rendezvous with the Alliance ship took place, and he didn't intend to become a permanent resident. He flew the shuttle over a mountain range and saw the planet's mining station in the middle of a desert plain. _Right there, nice and neat._ The shuttle's handling got shaky as it slowed against some wind gusts, then he settled the shuttle on a landing platform. Through the Kodiak's window, he could see the arid desert beyond. He saw a few dust devils appear and then fade away, but not much plant life. Some cactus and scrub brush, and a couple of dry stream beds, but little else. The blowing sand promised to bite into his eyes and exposed skin too. He would definitely keep wearing his tactical gear.

He wanted to know as soon as the Alliance ship arrived, and adjusted the heads-up display inside his helmet to show the shuttle's scanner. He disembarked from the shuttle and steadied himself as a wind gust almost threw him to the ground. The sand and pebbles blew against his body armor and make a hissing sound around him, and his display showed that the outside temperature was over 130 degrees. He jogged off the landing platform and moved out. For the next hour, he inspected the mining facility on foot to make sure he was alone, and scouted the area for cover if he needed it.

 _I can't freaking believe it. First, Cerberus sends me on a mission to capture a turian on a frozen ice planet. We capture the guy, but part of my team gets killed. Then Inali tells me that it happened because Cerberus tried to control our minds like puppets right in the middle of a firefight. We get back to Ares station, Inali's arrested, and they try to arrest us too. Everybody starts shooting, Ares station turns into a madhouse, Inali's dead, and the rest of my team is _probably dead. I end up joining up with that turian and we fight our way off the station. We get separated, and now I'm stuck here on this desert cooker. Unreal.__

Metal decks clanged under Randall's feet as massive drills bored their way into the ground around him. They lumbered mightily in the heat, driving into the desert floor to plunder the planet's resources. Power generators up to a hundred feet high emitted an eerie scarlet glow. Metal decks vibrated against the rumble of enormous automated cranes and conveyors as they hauled and sifted tons of rock. Pipes vented superheated steam while fire stacks burned infernos of orange and blue flames high into the sky. He counted maybe twenty control panels scattered at the site, each of them covered an inch of dust and dirt. It looked like no living hands had touched them in a decade or more. "No bad guys," he said to himself. "Just as it should be. Good. Now stay that way."

The earpiece in Randall's helmet began to beep and his eyes darted to the scanner in his display. _Come on. Let this be the rendezvous from the Alliance. Let it be the Alliance, and get me the hell off this rock and away from Cerberus. Just let it be._ Within seconds, his heart began to sink. The new blip on the shuttle's scanner approached from the wrong direction. From its flight path, it must have come from _Ares_ station. It couldn't have come from anywhere else. Cerberus had found him, and sent troops to kill him.

Randall ran back to the Kodiak and readied his weapons pack. He didn't have much time. As he stepped into its doorway, a thought crossed his mind that made him hesitate. He studied the scanner again.

 _That ship has to be a small shuttle, because Cerberus didn't have any big troop transports in that hangar on Ares station. But, I'm not seeing any new contacts on the scanner. Why did they send just one?_

He had options. He could fly his Kodiak to the nearest mountain range and hide there, but he didn't know the mountain's terrain, and Cerberus could track him until he landed. The desert plain offered little cover, so he ruled that out. But at the mining station, his enemies would need to search for a needle in a haystack. Even if they outnumbered him, he could easily pick them off. He would make his stand there.

From the scanner, Randall saw the ship would soon enter the planet's outer atmosphere. As if on cue, he heard the Director's voice in his headset. "Well, well, if it isn't Randall Ezno. Did you really think you'd get away with all the classified information that you and Inali stole? You should have known I'd find you."

Randall crouched over his gear and checked the power level on his assault rifle. "You and what army, Director? I know you can't send an Ogre Mech out here, and your troops don't impress me. The people you sent are dead meat."

"Oh, really Ezno? I'm so glad to hear that. But I don't need an army to kill you. In fact, I only need one person. She's an old friend of yours. I'm sure Inali will be excited to see you again."

Randall stood up and his blood ran cold. "You're lying. Inali's dead."

The Director laughed heavily. "Oh, Ezno. I wish I could see the look on your face."

"No…you showed me a live feed of Inali on those monitors back on the station. Your goons killed her." Randall paced the inside of the shuttle like a caged animal. "I know what I freaking saw."

The Director spoke with a sickening, almost soothing calm. "I'm sorry, Randall. Your voice sounds shaky. Have I upset you? Are there tears in your eyes? Are you crying?" The bastard laughed again and Randall imagined his face. "You don't know what you saw on the monitors, Randall. It's so easy for us to make illusions, and I'll just leave it at that. I'm so proud of my success with this new experiment. Inali's made great progress. She's perfection in my eyes. She's the 'new flesh.' Killing you will be a great test of her capabilities. I just hope she doesn't kill you too quickly."

Randall heard the sound of the incoming shuttle's engines, grabbed the scope from his sniper rifle and dashed outside. His mind raced as the shuttle cleared the mountain range. _What the hell do I do now?_ _I can't kill Inali. I can't!_ And for sure, the Director counted on it. Cerberus trained their soldiers to focus on the mission, trained them to block out thoughts of loved ones or anything personal. If you lost focus for just a second during combat, it could get you killed. And it didn't get more personal than this. He watched as the shuttle landed, and its hatch opened. Randall saw the monster they sent.

 _Inali! Oh God, Inali!_

Randall's stomach churned. It was true. He recognized Inali - or, what used to be her. Her skin didn't look human anymore. Instead, its bleached pale white color contrasted sharply with the brown sand. Her auburn curls were gone. In its place, her shaven bald scalp revealed thick black wires that ran from the back of her head to her upper back. Randall could see the scarlet glow of biotic implants from inside her eyes and under her skin, brightly glowing even in the sunlight. She wore body armor, carried a weapons pack with a rifle. She walked with a stiff, inhuman gait.

As he looked at her face, he saw… _nothing_ _._ Nothing at all. Cold, passive and blank, not a sign of humanity. She didn't flinch against the oppressive heat, didn't notice the wind and the sand, and didn't hesitate in her approach. It felt as though he saw a walking statue, with upright posture like a mannequin. Randall's jaw dropped as she floated into the air and moved above some large rocks in a gully.

...

 _Inali Renata_

Inali Renata's mind might as well have watched the scene from a thousand miles away. This time the dream took her to a desert planet. As before, she had some sense of her surroundings, but passively submitted to the AI's commands and felt nothing. Sometimes she weakly tried to resist and retake control of her body. She wanted to turn around, to stop moving, to just blink her eyes when she wanted to. She floated over some rocks, and crested a ridge as she approached some type of industrial area. Far away, a man in body armor stood on a platform where the desert met the edge of the facility. He waved his arms in the air. She accelerated toward him and thought she heard his voice, as he called her name over and over. Then, her distant mind reacted to the sound of that voice.

 _It's Ran. My God...they sent me here to kill Ran! No! NO!_ Against Inali's will, the Director made her conjure a biotic attack and throw missiles of energy at Randall. Scintillating red streams of biotic energy leaped from her arms and flew toward him. She saw all of the missiles hit home.

...

 _Randall Ezno_

For the rest of his life, Randall Ezno never shook the memory of Inali's cold, lifeless stare when she attacked him for the first time. The missiles' impact blew him to the ground. He fell backward, spun around to his knees, scrambled to his feet and ran for his life.

"Inali, stop! Listen to me!" He dove behind an old control station and caught his breath. A cloud of dirt scattered off the panel and drifted over him. "Inali, it's me, Randall!" No sooner had he finished speaking than he heard the monster take out its rifle. It opened fire and riddled the panel with high-powered rifle rounds. Sparks, fragments and ricochets filled the air.

 _Dammit, forget about Inali - she's dead. Worse than dead, and that thing is going to kill me!_

Randall flinched and his heart pounded as rifle rounds filled the air and metal fragments impacted his kinetic shield. He struggled to focus. Drawing his assault rifle, he broke cover and sprinted along a conveyor moving tons of rock. _That thing isn't Inali. It isn't. It's a monster. You've got to kill it. You've got kill this thing._ Glancing over his shoulder, he saw no sign of his enemy until it materialized out of thin air - _Cerberus gave it a cloak, that's just great_ \- and it conjured another attack. _Run, dammit, run!_

Randall heard the telltale hiss of biotic missiles as he sprinted. A stream of red biotic energy struck his upper body and threw him off balance. He made his decision at that instant. Either he would survive, or this monster would kill him. He had no choice, and it didn't matter that he would feel like he was killing Inali. She was already gone. Drowning in shame and regret, he grimaced and opened fire.

Several of his bullets struck the monster's body armor, and it didn't seem to feel them. Randall kept running and launched biotic attacks of his own. First he threw a salvo attack, and then a storm bubble. Blue streams of biotic energy flared through the air and struck. As the biotic storm bubble surrounded her, the monster staggered and cried out.

 _Christ. Not only am I going to have to kill Inali, but I'm going to hear her cries and screams while I kill her._ Disbelief surrounded him. This wasn't happening. This just couldn't be happening. He saw the monster lose its balance for a moment, and then emerged from the storm bubble with exactly the same icy stare as before.

Randall engaged his cloak and ran for cover behind a generator. He had to think. He had to start thinking like a soldier again, and had to stop thinking that this monster would do anything except kill him dead. The creature opened fire with its rifle again, and sprayed an area that was nowhere near him. The creature turned its head in a slow, sweeping arc. Left, and then center, and then right. A red cloud of biotic energy swirled around its forearms, then it unleashed biotic missiles at a fire stack. Randall's brow furrowed as he studied the creature.

It floated into the air, cloaked, and vanished from his sight for a few seconds. It reappeared above a generator, ignoring the superheated steam from a nearby vent. Again, the slow turning of its head to study its surroundings. It drew its assault rifle and riddled a control panel with rounds until it fell apart. Then it disappeared again.

 _Well all right. It's looking for me, but it can't find me. Okay…okay…. Now think like a soldier, dammit._

Using cover and his cloak, he bought himself enough time to study Inali's movements. For several minutes, he didn't attack. He only watched what Inali did. She would cloak, float a short distance, and then reappear and attack an area with biotics and her rifle. Repeat. Repeat.

 _Cerberus must be controlling Inali with some type of AI. They aren't even using a good search pattern. She's got a good assault rifle and her biotics pack a hell of a punch, but those are really basic moves. They made this thing to fight and kill, but they didn't think much further ahead than that. All right monster, let's see how well you think on your feet..._

Randall aimed his rifle at a conveyor belt near Inali and fired. The all-confident AI that controlled Inali never considered diving for cover like a soldier would have, and instead it turned Inali and sent a biotic attack where Randall no longer stood. He de-cloaked with a clear shot and a moment to aim, setting his rifle on full automatic, blasting the monster's armor for a few seconds and sending another biotic attack. Inali cried out again, and Randall couldn't stand to hear it. He ran for cover, then engaged his cloak as soon as he could.

Minutes went by. Randall made Inali's AI second-guess itself, using cover and cloak to make moves that made sense, or made confusing ones, and then attacked to keep it off balance. He had a few chances to take aimed shots at Inali's head, and each time he couldn't bring himself to do it.

Randall's palms sweat with mounting dread. Inali's movements – no, the monster's movements, it was the _monster's_ movements, he reminded himself – became more erratic. Sometimes, they seemed random and downright confused. Randall stopped using his rifle, just because he couldn't bear to shoot Inali again. But just the same, one thing was clear in his mind: _This battle's going to be over soon. I'm about to kill Inali, the woman I love. F _or God's sake, she's suffered too much already. I need to do the damn job and put her out of her misery.__

Randall sprinted and fell to the ground before he could reach cover. His cloak deactivated and he was a sitting duck. Inali charged and struck him with the force of a runaway truck before he could regain his feet. _How the hell did she hit me that hard?!_ Inali drew her assault rifle and riddled Randall's kinetic shield as he scrambled to his feet. More rounds struck him and her gleaming demonic red eyes bore through him as he unleashed a biotic salvo and storm bubble.

Both of them attacked and neither missed. Inali's rifle rounds stunned Randall at the same moment that his attacks staggered her backward. She dropped to one knee, and then wavered on her feet. Her red eyes lost their intense glow and glazed over as most of her biotic implants flickered intermittently. She didn't cloak. She didn't even move. Wind gusts made Inali shift and stumble again.

Randall stood, slack-jawed. Inali seemed to be looking past him, looking for something that might have been a thousand miles away. He even thought he saw Inali's lips move. Years of Randall's combat training and experience screamed at him to fight, to engage his cloak. He could only stand and look at Inali as his gut told him to shoot her, or throw a biotic salvo at her.

His heart broke as he studied her face. Only days before, he and Inali had stolen a moment together. He had held her in his arms and gazed into her eyes. Now her eyes glowed dimly red and stared blankly ahead, and her body had been violated beyond description. Inali still didn't move, and Randall thought a hard breeze might blow her to the ground. Against every instinct, Randall raised both of his hands, opened his mouth, and spoke.

"Inali?"

Inali's lips continued to move, but her voice was mute.

Randall stepped forward and spoke again. "Inali? Can you hear me?" Then his skin flushed hot as he recognized her words.

 _Help…me…help…me…_

The sight galvanized Randall. "Inali! I know what you're saying! If you can hear me - I'll try to help you! I'll try to save you!"

Inali's eyes flashed recognition and Randall heard the Director's furious agitated voice over his headset: "This isn't over, Ezno. I'm taking direct control." Inali's whole body staggered and jerked.

Randall cried, "No! No! Inali!"

Inali breathed hard and began to raise her hands. She stared helplessly at them as a crimson cloud of biotic energy conjured around her palms and forearms. Inali clenched them into fists and grimaced emotionally as she gasped quick breaths, shaking her hands as though she could hold back the biotic assault by sheer will. She screamed as she turned and whipped her arms, unleashing another salvo at Randall. The crimson streams of biotic energy struck him in the gut with the force of a dozen invisible sledgehammers.

Randall struggled to breathe as he scrambled to his feet and ran. His mind raced. _She's alive. Inali's alive. I have to save her. How can I save her? Dammit, keep running!_

The Director doggedly taunted him again: "No, you can't save her, Randall. And you can't run. I've had enough of her, and enough of you. It's time to end this game." More gunfire filled the air as Randall dashed for cover. Rifle rounds zipped through the air, but Inali's aim was frenzied and random. Some of the rounds sailed over Randall by thirty feet, and others struck fire towers that stood dozens of yards away. Randall dove behind a boulder and looked at his stealth generator. The light turned green, ready to cloak. He paused before cloaking, and glanced back toward Inali.

Inali swung her assault rifle against a metal pipe and broke it in half. Her torso jerked once, then twice as if she wrestled against an invisible attacker. Her voice pierced the air, distorted by awful machinery inside her throat and lungs.

"Ran! Help me!"

Inali's implants flickered intermittently again. Even the hellish red glow from her eyes dimmed again, and a desperate thought crossed Randall's mind. _Cerberus didn't start losing control of Inali until my biotic attacks wore her down. Maybe…j_ _ust maybe those control implants have had all they can take._ Randall closed his eyes and whispered a prayer. He engaged his cloak, leaped over the boulder and sprinted directly towards Inali.

 _This…had…better…work!_

...

 _Cerberus Station Ares_

The Director slammed his fist on the instrument panel that controlled Inali. He went downright ballistic when Inali shattered her assault rifle against the metal pipe. He tried to redirect Inali to scan the field and locate Randall, but the screen's image flickered and shook as Inali resisted his control.

"Inali, you damn bitch, do what I tell you!"

The image stabilized just long enough for him to see a blurry distorted form charging right at him. _It's Ezno - he's right on top of me!_

...

 _Randall Ezno_

Randall saw that Inali's face was awash in despair as the Director wheeled her body to repel his attack. Randall leaped and struck Inali like a charging rhino as he threw his shoulder into her torso. Both combatants went flying and landed in the desert scrub. As fast as Randall could, he jumped onto Inali and began to rain biotic attacks upon her. With each new attack more and more implants flickered and went dark.

...

 _Cerberus Station Ares_

The Director's control screen sounded alarms and flashed warning lights all over it. Inali's visual and audio implants saturated with incoming biotic energy and couldn't process fast enough. Her peripheral and central nervous system implants reacted too. The Director shouted at the screen in rage as one implant status indicator after another turned yellow as it was damaged, and then turned red as it failed. And with that, the Director knew that all of the devastating intelligence that Inali and Randall had stolen from Cerberus would soon fall into the hands of the Alliance. The Director seethed and cursed the day he approved Randall Ezno for advanced infiltrator training, after reading a glowing recommendation from his trusted expert handler, Inali Renata.

...

 _Randall Ezno_

Inali's eyes rolled back and her body fell limp. Randall threw off his helmet and frantically looked for any sign of life. "What have I done - Inali, Inali talk to me…"

 _She's unresponsive…check her airway, see if her chest rises and falls…YES…hang on, Inali…just hang on, hang on…_

Randall deployed his field medical gear and heard the Director's voice through his headset again. This time the Director's voice shook. "Inali deserved it. You have no idea what she's done. What you've both done. She deserves this." The Director sounded spiteful on top of it all.

 _Concentrate…concentrate…follow battle casualty check list…follow the damn check list…please please don't die …_

Randall tried to keep his mind steady through his grief, shock, and now fury. His voice was heavy with menace. "What _Inali's_ done, Director? She's still alive, asshole...and it's nothing compared to what you've done to her."

 _Her major arteries look ok, her body armor protected her...external bleeding isn't nearly as bad as I thought…her pupils aren't dilating evenly…she's got bad internal bleeding…shit, SHIT…_

Randall's focus stayed on Inali as he spoke again. "What Inali's done is nothing compared to what I'll do to Cerberus, and to you, Mr. Director. Pray that your Illusive Man kills you first, because I'm going to make that my lifelong mission!" Randall switched off his com. Only the sounds of the wind, blowing sand, and the rumble of mining factory machinery remained. The fire stacks burned their flames up into the sky as they had for decades.

...

Randall assembled a makeshift shelter around Inali. The desert sun and blowing sand were the least of Inali's problems, but at least it was something he could do to help. Her life hung by a thread. Her best chance, her only chance, would be if the Alliance ship could arrive in time. Not only would their ship's doctor need to pull off a miracle, but they would need to keep her alive long enough to get her to a real hospital. And then…what? Would the Alliance's doctors have even the faintest clue how to help her?

 _If. If. If. I must be out of my mind. I'm only prolonging her agony_.

As he tended to her, Randall thought he heard a low voice. A woman's voice. "Randall…Ran…" The distorted voice sounded like it came from inside a machine. But, undeniably, it was Inali's. Randall blinked tears. He removed a glove, and placed his hand on Inali's face.

"Inali…I love you. Please hang on. None of this would've happened to you if it hadn't been for me…I didn't know what else to do. I had to use my biotics on you, because I just didn't know what else to do…please…"

Inali's gaze faded. She slowly shook her head as she whispered, "I love you too, Ran…please…finish me...finish me, Ran…"

Randall's face fell, and the weary soldier's chin trembled as he struggled to speak. He choked on his next words. "Forgive me, Inali. Please. But I can't."

Inali's eyes faded and closed as sleep overcame her. Randall retrieved his helmet and picked it up. _Come on. Let's see an Alliance ship on that scanner._ As he looked at his helmet's heads-up display for the shuttle's scanner feed, he saw no sign of an Alliance ship approaching. A minute passed, and still nothing. More time passed, then he removed his helmet and threw it down on the ground.

…

Randall settled down in the shelter alongside Inali, and just sat. He never felt more empty, alone, or lost in his entire life. He didn't know how long he sat there – minutes that seemed like hours, but really he didn't know. Now and then, he donned his helmet again and hoped that he'd see an Alliance ship approaching at high speed. So far, he'd seen nothing. Maybe the Alliance wasn't coming after all. Maybe all of this had been for nothing. He looked at the medical kit's emergency defibrillator, and wondered how long it'd be before he used it on Inali. How long before, he expected, it would fail to save her.

 _When Inali and I started seeing each other, we knew we were breaking the rules. But we were loyal. We believed in Cerberus. We trusted them, and my team trusted them. How in the hell could all this have happened? Is this really how it's going to end?_

His headset began to beep. Randall rushed to grab his helmet and put it on. _Please. Please let it be._ His breath caught as he saw a blip at the extreme end of the scanner's range, moving on a direct course to LV426. His hands clenched into fists in anticipation as the ship continued to approach. _Come on, come on._ The flashing words "ALLIANCE SHIP" appeared on the screen.

 _Yes. All right, now get here already. Talk to me!_

In seconds, Randall's headset crackled to life and he heard a voice through static. "Randall Ezno, this is the Alliance ship _SSV Normandy_ , do you copy? Randall Ezno, this is the _SSV Normandy_ _, do you copy, o_ ver?"

Randall toggled on his com and spoke quickly. "This is Ezno. Hurry the hell up! There's a wounded woman here. She's in really bad shape!"

"Copy that Ezno, we'll get a medical team ready. We're just a few minutes out."

Randall's eyes stayed on his stricken friend. " _Normandy_ , some things you need to know. This woman, we're close, Cerberus did things to her. They put a ton of biotic implants in her. A few minutes ago the damn Director controlled her by remote and made her try to kill me. I shot her. I used biotics on her. The area's secure now but hurry up. She's dying, she'll be dead if you don't hurry."

A moment passed. Randall heard the man from the _Normandy_ speak to someone else, but couldn't hear what he said. Then the man spoke to Randall again, and his tone sounded more urgent this time. "Got it, Ezno. Just hang on. We've got a good lock on your position and we'll do what we can."

"All right. Thanks. Just get here." He stepped out of the shelter, expecting to help the Alliance crew tend to Inali when they landed. Then another thought occurred to him. " _Normandy_ , just so you know, I took off my weapons pack. Do you guys need me to get down on my knees, hands behind the head, the usual prisoner stuff?"

Another pause. "No, Ezno. But play it cool. Some of them will be armed, so don't make any sudden moves."

"Roger that. I won't make any sudden moves." Looking toward the shelter, he added, "Because it sure would suck if I got killed after all this."

Randall removed his helmet and squinted against the sunlight. Sand blew against his face and hair. After what seemed like forever, Randall heard the rumble of a sonic boom, followed by the distant sound of engines. He scanned the horizon for a few seconds until he saw a ship in the air. _Deep scout frigate. Probably has a ship's doctor and some crew who double as medics, but nothing more than that. Not much, but at least it's something_. He crouched down and spoke to Inali. "Stay alive," he said softly. "Just…stay alive."

Inali's eyes fluttered open, and her gaze turned toward Randall. "Hey Ran..." she whispered, "Do you think...biotics like us have better sex?"

He knelt beside her and gently touched her face again. "Try to rest. The Alliance is here. It won't be long now."

The _Normandy_ settled down and lowered its boarding ramp. The wind kicked up again and Randall tried to cover Inali from the blowing sand. He squinted as he saw a medical team coming down the ramp with a stretcher. Six crewmembers in full tactical gear escorted them, and four of them carried rifles. The other two, both women, sprinted toward him. They definitely weren't medics.

The first runner yelled ahead as she approached. "Where is she? Where's the woman who's hurt?"

Randall gestured toward the shelter. The woman removed her helmet as she arrived, and he saw that her head was shaven except for a dark ponytail. Randall saw a fierceness in the woman's eyes that he'd never seen on anyone before. He prided himself on never being intimidated, but he found himself flinching and stepping backward. He had a feeling that this woman's eyes had seen far more bad things in one lifetime than anyone he'd ever known. "I had no choice, I had to -"

The fierce woman ignored Randall's words as she stepped past him toward the shelter. She leaned inside and hesitated, and her jaw dropped at the sight. She shook her head slowly and her eyes saddened as she saw Inali: Thick wires led from Inali's torso to her pale shaved head, and God only knew what other implants Cerberus put inside. Some of Inali's biotic implants still glowed. Her body armor had burn marks from Randall's gunfire, and Randall's biotic attacks had bruised her body.

The second woman arrived and removed her helmet. This woman had shoulder-length brunette hair. "I'm Lieutenant Commander Ashley Williams. We got here as fast as we could."

"Randall Ezno, and I sure wish we didn't meet like this."

"Likewise, Randall." Her eyes looked him over. "Your combat armor looks beat to hell. I don't know how you're still standing. All right, just so you know, you'll be in a holding cell under guard while you're on the _Normandy_. We'll take your weapons pack now, and you'll take off your armor once we've got you aboard."

Randall nodded. "No problem. I won't give you any trouble. But please, just help my friend."

"We'll do what we can." Ashley looked over her shoulder as the _Normandy_ 's rifle-armed crewmembers set up a perimeter around the landing site. One of them retrieved Randall's weapons pack.

Nearby, the fierce woman spoke quietly toward Inali, just loud enough for Randall and Ashley to hear. "What did those bastards do to you…." The woman glanced back at Randall with narrow eyes, and seemed to aim her glance at the Cerberus markings on his combat armor. "Just stay there, Mr. Cerberus. Give me a minute." She looked at Ashley and said, "Mr. Cerberus here should have cuffs on him."

Ashley frowned. "Shepard doesn't think so, Jack. Neither do I. Just help her, all right?"

Randall saw Inali eyes open, slowly. Inali looked up at Jack and managed a slight smile. "I like...your hairstyle..."

"Shhhh," said Jack. "What's your name?"

"Inali. It's Inali…."

"I'm Jack. We'll be good friends after you live through this."

A bubble of biotic energy formed around Inali. Randall noticed that the bubble didn't have the violent turbulence of the biotic storm that he used as a weapon.

Jack stepped out of the shelter and looked toward Ashley as the medics arrived. "That'll buy her some time."

As the medics examined Inali, shocked expressions crossed all of their faces. "Christ almighty," said one of them. Another gave Randall a look. "What the hell did you do to her?"

"Don't start with me, dipshit!"

Ashley glared at the medic. "Just do your job." She toggled her com. "Skipper, it's Ashley. Tell Joker for God's sake we'll have to haul ass. Ezno's okay but his friend is a mess. And Skipper, you've got to see what they did to her. You won't believe it. Out."

The medics worked quickly. As they lifted Inali's stretcher, Randall noticed that a rifle-armed crewmember walked behind him as they jogged to the _Normandy_. The wind blew sand into his air and chafed his skin as they went. Even in the desert's sweltering heat, Randall felt like a cold ball of ice had materialized in his stomach every time he looked at Inali. He glanced at the flames from the fire towers one last time, and he couldn't wait to leave.

The woman named Jack looked sharply at Randall as the group climbed up the boarding ramp. "Hey, Cerberus. You're going to kill them, right?"

Randall didn't flinch this time. "Yes. I swear to God, I will kill every last one of them." The woman looked angry, but Randall didn't believe her anger was meant for him.

The blowing wind silenced as the boarding ramp closed. After climbing aboard the _Normandy_ and getting out of the planet's furnace-like heat, Randall felt like he'd walked into a refrigerator. Everyone steadied themselves as the _Normandy_ lifted off, and then accelerated with a jolt. Randall's eyes stayed on Inali's stretcher the entire time. He noticed that Jack's eyes did, too. The medics lifted the stretcher and carried Inali out, as Ashley and a crew member stood up and escorted Randall away. The woman named Jack turned to follow the medics.

Randall spoke after her as she walked out. He asked a question, but it felt more like a statement. "She doesn't have a chance, does she?"

Jack didn't look back. "You never know, Cerberus. I hope she gets lucky."

The crew member tugged Randall forward. Randall stared ahead and thought he might fall apart, but he did his best not to show it.

"Hey. Soldier." It was Ashley, and her calm expression helped steady him. "You got her this far. And the guys on this ship have a way of pulling off miracles."

At that moment, for the first time in a long time, Randall Ezno allowed himself a moment, just a moment, of hope.


	2. Facing the Dinosaur

_One-shot story inspired by the Mass Effect spinoff game, "Mass Effect: Infiltrator." Takes place after the events of "The Monster They Sent."_

 **Facing the Dinosaur**

It was about 2:15 am, and Randall Ezno sat locked in a room in the cargo hold of the _SSV Normandy_ , and wrote into a journal. It helped keep him sane while he sat there, alone with his thoughts. He hoped that it would help him sleep. He rubbed the stubble on his face, and gently touched an angry bruise on his forehead. He also felt stitches from a mighty scar across his cheek. Both had been left by a krogan named Wrex who was serving on the _Normandy_ crew.

 _I think I'll be dead in the next few days_ , he wrote. _That krogan Wrex is going to kill me. I hope he does it quick. I doubt he will, though._

Randall had defected from Cerberus only days before, with as many Cerberus secrets as he could get his hands on. He'd served as an infiltrator, a soldier. Need somebody killed, or captured? Want me to use a rifle? An omniblade? Biotic attacks? Need to destroy something? He was your man. Then it all changed. His girlfriend Inali Renata had been arrested by Cerberus, and he found out that she was being subjected to terrible experiments. He fought his way into the Cerberus labs where she was being held, and found out that it was a haunted house brought to life. It was a chamber of horrors where the limits of science met the twisted minds of madmen. It was a place where Randall saw some prisoners beg for death, and where he saw other prisoners repay their captors with mad, gruesome fury.

 _God forgive me,_ he wrote. _I can't stop seeing the faces of those prisoners. Awake or asleep, I'll always see them. Asari. Turians. Krogans. Some of those prisoners were there, because I put them there. And until days ago, I didn't fucking know, I didn't fucking care to know, what Cerberus did to anybody that I captured. Soldier, my ass. Protecting humanity, my ass. If there's a hell, I deserve to be sent to the worst part of it._

And then he finally found Inali. She'd been plugged in by Cerberus, wired up, and they had turned her into a mindless killing machine. A grand experiment by the Director of the laboratory, and then unleashed on Randall. He had survived, and made his rendezvous with the nearest Alliance ship, the _Normandy._ He thought of Inali – or, however much of Inali remained - lying unconscious in a medically-induced coma in the _Normandy's_ medical bay.

Randall tensed up as he began to write again. _Inali…look what they've done to you. I was too late, too damned late. Why God, why didn't I reach you in time…will you ever come out of that coma? Should I have let you die, finished you off, taken away your pain? I'm such a selfish bastard. I just couldn't bear to do it, I had to try, I had to take the chance that, somehow maybe the Alliance might…._

Save her? Was that what he wanted to write? After everything that had happened, did he really believe that was remotely possible?

 _You deserve to live, Inali. I don't._

Randall put the journal down, and tried to settle down on his cot. He thought about the moment that the krogan Wrex attacked him, a couple of hours after coming aboard the _Normandy_. He'd just been interrogated by the _Normandy_ 's Commander Shepard and a few others, and Randall had admitted what he did for Cerberus. He also told them about the experiments that he discovered Cerberus was doing. From the icy stares that he saw, he thought for sure that some of the crew were going to gang up on him and throw him out an airlock. But when he told them about what they'd done to krogans...that was when Wrex had attacked him.

"Dog shit! That's who you are! Coward, murdering scum!" Wrex had called him. "No honor, you're not even worth killing. We should have left you to rot with Cerberus!" He thought the krogan was going to bite him in half, but instead Wrex had pummeled him mercilessly. After being treated for his injuries, he was moved the brig to keep him away from the rest of the crew.

Sleep brought only a nightmare, one that he remembered having too many times as a child. He was a boy again, little Randy Ezno, in the woods near his home, hiding terrified behind a tree. A dinosaur, a Tyrannosaurus Rex, stood nearby. And then, in that uncanny way that all nightmares have, the dinosaur turned toward him. He tried to run, but couldn't. The dinosaur's gaze matched his, as it marched closer, closer, and opened its mouth and showed its jaws before they descended on him...

...

Randall was shaken from his nightmare by the sound of an explosion, followed by the sound of alarms. He awoke, his eyes wide, as the lights in the room flickered on and off, and then felt the floor began to lurch to his right. He noticed that the door to his room was ajar.

He ran over to the door, and with all of his strength, slid it further open. _Power failure?_ he wondered. _Are we under attack?_ He looked around for whoever was guarding him, and saw someone unconscious on the floor. He heard another explosion to his left. Then he heard a voice on the _Normandy's_ public address system, from a woman who was shockingly calm: "Fire on the Engineering deck."

 _Stop thinking, just help them,_ he thought. He quickly looked at the unconscious crewman. _Just a concussion,_ he thought. _All right. Those explosions were to the left, wherever that goes. I might as well die trying to help_. Then he sprinted toward the sound of the commotion, and saw signs for the Engineering deck.

The deck of the _Normandy_ lurched again as Randall reached the Engineering deck. He put his hands on the wall to steady himself as the deck shifted under his feet. Alarm lights and sounds were everywhere. The room lights flickered on an off, and there was a thick gas everywhere.

Randall saw a quarian, she was helping a woman with short dark hair. "I've got Gabby!" said the quarian. The woman named Gabby was coughing, and seemed to have an injured leg. He thought he heard her say the words "ruptured fuel cell," and then he was sure that he heard her say, "They've got to vent the room. The door, they'll be closing the door!"

Randall then saw a man with a scarred face emerge from the gas, dragging a man with short red hair and a goatee. The man with the scarred face spoke with an accent. "Wrex is still in there! There's no time, we've still got to get Wrex!" he said.

"I'm on it!" yelled Randall, running headlong into the gas.

Scarred Face Man and the quarian both turned her heads in surprise as Randall spoke and ran past them. Randall heard the quarian ask, "Was that the -?" before her voice was lost in the noise of fire alarms and escaping gas.

Randall held his breath. He began to feel a tingling sensation all over his skin, and his eyes began to burn. He didn't know what type of gas was surrounding him, and didn't want to know. _If they need to vent this gas into space, that tells you plenty_ , he thought. He saw the krogan laying unconscious near a pair of blown fuel cells. _The fuel cells. Right. That's what I heard_ , he thought. He ran over to the krogan, and began to focus on him. He began to feel a rush of energy as he harnessed his biotic implants.

Randall thought, _My biotics aren't strong enough to lift you, big fella, but they just might make you light enough..._ Then he gritted his teeth, and began to push the krogan. He took a quick breath, then felt a searing pain in his lungs. He felt a bead of sweat run down his face. He had to close his eyes and push blindly forward. _Drive your legs, Ezno. Drive. Push. PUSH!_

He began to hear the voices of the quarian and Scarred Face Man, and pushed forward in their direction. He was forced to take another breath, and the pain escalated and felt like daggers inside his chest. He also felt a stinging pain all over his skin. _Push harder. Run, just run!_ The gas was too thick to see through. The swelling in his eyes was getting worse. _Damn it, where is that exit -_

Finally, he banged his knee and midsection against the closing emergency bulkhead door, and clumsily fumbled and pushed Wrex past it. Randall fell alongside Wrex, and felt the relief of the cool breathable air against his skin. He could feel that someone was there, and heard voices, but understood none of it. His eyes were swelling so badly that he couldn't see anything, and he gasped hard against the pain. He couldn't speak. He began to flail in pain, and felt people restraining him. Inside his mind, he screamed, _My chest, my face, it's all burning, that burning…make it stop make it stop son of a bitch please God make it stop_ , and passed out.

...

The next thing that Randall heard was the sound of beeping medical equipment. He could feel medical gauze on his face. Then he heard a woman's calming voice.

"Don't talk. Lie still," she said. "Let me get that. The swelling should be down by now."

Randall felt her removing the pack from his face. He saw a thin woman with graying short hair. She was the ship's doctor, she'd examined him when he first boarded the _Normandy_. He never got her name, though. His eyes squinted against the light, but then felt relief as his eyes adjusted. Nothing else wrong with those, thank God. He tried to move his arms and legs, and could feel that he was in restraints.

 _Medical restraints?_ he wondered. _Or maybe they don't trust me. Probably both._

The doctor said, "You're going to be all right. That gas did a number on your throat and lungs, but we're treating that. Try to keep your talking to a minimum for the next day or two." She handed him a note pad. "If you want to communicate, you can use this."

Randall slowly looked around the room. He saw an intensive care chamber to his right, which was surrounded by a curtain. _Inali,_ he thought sadly.

To his left, the three nearest beds were occupied by the two engineers that he saw being rescued, and Wrex. The engineers were asleep. Wrex was talking to Commander Shepard, the quarian, and Scarred Face Man, who all stood near Wrex's bed. Randall was sure that he overheard Shepard say, "...we're lucky to escape. Cerberus really wants this guy Ezno dead..."

Randall wrote down, _Will they all be ok?_ and handed the notepad back to the doctor. She glanced at the notepad, and gave him a smile. "Yes, they will."

They were interrupted by the booming voice of the krogan. "Is he finally awake?"

Through glazed eyes, Randall looked in Wrex's direction. Then he wrote, _Glad you're ok_ , and handed it to the doctor. She handed took the notepad, and handed it to Wrex.

Wrex read Randall's message, and then showed it to Shepard. Shepard nodded with satisfaction. Wrex looked at Randall and flatly said, "Scum."

Shepard walked over to Randall's side. Quietly, he said, "Ezno, I'm glad you were down there. Wrex will never admit it, but he'd be dead if you weren't down there. But when you're well enough, you'll go back into that holding cell, because the Alliance still doesn't know what they want us to do with you." He glanced over at Wrex. "I don't think that Wrex wants to kill you anymore, but he's no friend of yours. I'm taking no chances. I'll still keep a guard on your door."

Randall wearily gave Shepard thumbs-up, and went back to sleep.

...

Randall's dinosaur nightmare returned again. But somehow, things felt different.

He was a little boy again, just like before. Little Randy Ezno, hiding in the woods. The ground shook, and the Tyrannosaurus Rex appeared. It turned its gaze toward him. But this time, little Randy decided that he would not hide. No. Whatever was coming, however bad it would be, he would face it. Despite the terror rising inside him, like the terror that only a little boy could feel, he stepped around the tree, and defiantly faced the beast. He saw it hesitate, as though it was the first time that it had ever seen its prey walk _toward_ it.

Suddenly, he heard the booming sound of an M-300 Claymore assault shotgun. The rounds exploded against the midsection of the dinosaur, which leaped back and roared its anger.

Little Randy looked and saw a krogan moving into view, and it was armed to the teeth.

The krogan moved forward against the dinosaur and defended the boy. It switched to an assault rifle, spraying full automatic fire at the beast.

...

Randall opened his eyes from the dream, and saw that the lights were off in the medical bay. _Nighttime_ , he realized.

He thought about the dream, and breathed slowly, trying to relax against the pain in his lungs. _Maybe that'll be one less nightmare that I'll have,_ he thought _._ Then he looked to his right, at the intensive care chamber. He couldn't see Inali, but he knew she was there.

 _Sleep tight Inali,_ he thought. _I miss you._ Then he returned to sleep.


	3. Counselor Zaeed?

_Commander Shepard has allowed former Cerberus infiltrator Randall Ezno to leave his holding cell on the SSV Normandy. Randall talks with a few members of the crew who are former Cerberus, or used to work for Cerberus: Jacob, mess sergeant Gardner, Dr. Chakwas, and Zaeed. Jack shows up, and she's not happy to see Randall. Later, Zaeed gets Randall to talk about his escape from Cerberus._

 **A Soldier, Not a Murderer**

You could've heard a pin drop in the _SSV Normandy_ 's mess hall. Randall Ezno sat on one side of a table, alone. Zaeed sat across from him, along with a few members of the _Normandy_ crew who were former members of Cerberus: Jacob, mess sergeant Gardner, and Dr. Chakwas. Randall took a sip of water from a plastic cup, but didn't look up. In a low voice, he asked Dr. Chakwas, "Do you think those Alliance docs can save Inali?"

Dr. Chakwas paused before answering. "Inali's still critical, but she's stable," she began. "We've still got her in that coma, but I'm worried. Yesterday, I thought that Inali was starting to go into convulsions. But it happened with a spike in neural activity that I didn't expect. She began to do exactly the same motion, repeated, exactly ten seconds later. She did that again and again, for a couple of minutes. We got it under control, but I think that the Cerberus AI in her brain was trying to reboot and take control of her again. We were able to keep her down, but I'm worried that if I sedate her even more, it might kill her."

Randall had a sinking feeling while Dr. Chakwas spoke. It was bad enough to hear that the Cerberus AI might still have a grip on her. What was worse, was how he noticed that Dr. Chakwas had slowly, slightly, moved her head while she answered his question. To the left, and then right, then left. Repeat. Poker players would've called it a "tell," an unconscious way that she was answering his question.

 _I asked her if she thinks those Alliance docs can save Inali,_ he thought. _And without meaning to say it, she just shook her head, 'No.'_

Zaeed said, "I'll tell you what, Ezno. If you ever find the bastards who did this to her, don't kill them too fast. You send for me. I'll show them what pain really is."

Randall nodded. "Thanks. I'll do it."

Dr. Chakwas sipped a mug of hot green tea, and seemed lost in thought. Then she said, "They're sending her to the Alliance's Military Medical Center on the Citadel. I wish we they could take her to Huerta Memorial. But because Cerberus is involved, they want to keep her under guard, and keep her identity a secret. But if anyone can save her, they can."

 _She nodded this time,_ thought Randall. "I hope you're right," he said.

"I still can't believe what you said about Cerberus," said Jacob. "We've all heard about what you told Shepard. But hearing you say it now…I just can't believe it." He shook his head and continued, "I served with Cerberus for years. I was on dangerous missions, and we were doing what had to be done to protect humanity. Now we're mutating krogans? We're plugging in our own soldiers? We're turning asari, and people like Inali, we're turning them into…." He left the thought unfinished.

Randall looked at Jacob, and finished the thought for him. "Turning them into Frankenstein death machines?" he said. The temperature in the room felt like it dropped by ten degrees when he said it. He continued, "Yeah, I know. It's all true…and you've seen the footage. All of us on the station, we were all such damn fools. We were right there on the station, right where it was all happening. We'd all seen that door to the X‑1 research area, and we knew there was secret stuff going on in there. But we couldn't imagine what they were doing behind that door. If I'd heard about it from anyone besides Inali, I never would've believed it. I saw things with my own eyes, and I must've replayed that holo feed a dozen more, and I still can't believe it."

"It's not the Cerberus I joined," said Gardner. "No way. I don't know who the assholes were that ran your station, but my CO never would've gone for anything like that. The Cerberus I joined was part of the solution, not the problem. When the Illusive Man finds out, there'll be hell to pay."

Randall was sure that Gardner was wrong, and that the Illusive Man knew all about the secret horrors on _Ares_ station, but he didn't feel like arguing. "They lied to us all," said Randall. "Back on my colony, Cerberus told us how the Citadel and the Council didn't really care about humanity, but Cerberus did. While we were training, they always told us that human lives depended on us. Our families' lives. They told us that we were heroes." It was tough to meet the eyes of the others at the table. A silence hung in the air for a moment.

"They told us that too," said Jacob.

A woman's voice interrupted the group. "What's going on here, everyone? Shepard let the murderer out, did he?"

He knew that voice. It was Jack, the fierce crew member that he first met on LV426, just after the _Normandy_ arrived. Randall's skin flushed and the hair on the back of his neck stood up under her icy stare. Jack had shown some sympathy when he first arrived on the _Normandy_ with Inali. But after Randall was questioned by the _Normandy_ crew about what he'd discovered at Cerberus, and what he'd done as an infiltrator, all that changed.

"He's no murderer, Jack. He's a soldier, that's all," said Zaeed.

"Oh yeah? He's a _soldier_ , is he?" She taunted him with that last word. "I'm on a ship that's full of soldiers. I know what they're about. But this guy? How it about, Ezno? How many people did you capture and bring in, like that turian you told us about?"

A moment passed, and then Randall said, "You know what I told Shepard. And I helped that turian escape."

"Oh, but let's hear it again. So when you were shooting your way through that station, did you come across the bodies of anyone that you'd captured? That 'X-1' krogan monster, was that one of yours?"

"Give it a rest, Jack," said Jacob.

"Keep your trap shut, Jacob," she growled. "I heard what he said. Cerberus told them that they were heroes. Well, this hero you're talking with had a place at the table with the worst people at Cerberus."

Randall's eyes returned to his cup. The water was still, and he focused on that, trying to draw strength from it. He spoke slowly. "I was doing my job. I did what they trained me to do. I didn't know a damn thing about their experiments. None of us did. Once Inali found out, they turned on her, and they turned on me, and my whole damn squad."

Jack stepped forward, on Randall's side of the table. She leaned closer. "Yeah, you were just doing your job. And you liked your job. Didn't you?"

Randall couldn't meet her gaze.

"What did you think happened to the people that you captured?" asked Jack. "I'll tell you what happened. You fed all of them to a freaking meat grinder, that's what."

Dr. Chakwas said, "Jack…," and lowered her mug to the table.

Zaeed and Jacob began to stand up. Jacob said, "Jack, you cut the shit, right now."

Jack hadn't taken her eyes off Randall. "Fuck you, and fuck your infiltrator squad, Ezno. Your friend Inali was the only one who was worth a damn," she said. "She tried to stop them. She tried to save you. And so they took her, and look what they fucking did to her. You and your damn squad got off easy. And you, you're still standing, you piece of shit."

Jacob started to walk around the table. "Jack, I swear to God –"

Jack's eyes burned with anger as she turned toward Jacob, and then everyone else. "And here you are, all of you. Sitting with him, like he's some damn friend of yours."

Voices began to rise, from everyone in the room except Randall. He was felt like he was sitting in the middle of a storm. "You're right about me, Jack," he said. But no one heard, and he felt like he was invisible. "Dammit, all of you, shut the hell up!" he shouted. "Jack's right about me."

It was as though everyone had forgotten him until that moment. The room was silent again as Randall put down his cup, and then looked up at Jack. Softly, he said, "You're right. I did like my damn job. And until a few days ago, I never thought about what happened to the people that I captured. Not once, not ever. But after what I saw on that station, I don't think that I'll ever be able to think about anything else." He began to rise to his feet.

Jack grabbed Randall's shoulder and snarled, "I'm not done with you."

A commanding voice behind them said, "Yeah Jack, you are." Commander Shepard stood with his arms folded. "Ezno, you're out of here. Go."

Jack looked over her shoulder at Shepard. Randall didn't see her face as he walked out, but he figured that her usual burning anger was still there. She said to Shepard, "All right Boy Scout, are you here to stand up for your new pet? Here to tell me to make nice?"

"Jack, you stay right there. The rest of you, isn't there someplace else you should be?"

Randall was already few feet down the hall as everyone else left the room. Everyone heard Jack say, "Spare me your preaching, Boy Scout," as the door closed. The muffled sounds of a shouting match could be heard through the mess hall door.

…

A few hours later, Randall was in his small room in the _Normandy_ 's cargo hold, writing on a notepad that Shepard had allowed him to use.

 _The docs say that Inali had convulsions the other night. And it might've been because that AI that Cerberus put into her brain might be trying to wake her up and control her. Her suffering might never end, and I could've spared her that. Why didn't I just finish her when she asked me to, when I had the chance? Maybe I should sneak into the medical bay and…christ, I don't know…._

He didn't notice the man approaching his cell, until he heard the man's gravelly voice: "Ezno, you need to talk."

Without thinking, Randall stood up. There was a confused look on his face as he recognized Zaeed. Before he had a chance to say anything, the rough-looking man walked past him and took one of the chairs. Zaeed placed a bottle on the table, right on top of Randall's notepad, and had two empty cups with him.

"Sit down, Ezno. You need a drink," said the mercenary.

Randall stood by the doorway, dumbstruck. It was as though he expected Zaeed to disappear after the next time he blinked. Was this actually happening? He said, "You don't need to get me drunk to make me talk. I've already told you people everything I know. You have the holo feed, you have the intel I stole."

"I'm not bloody well here to interrogate you. I'm here to drink you under the table. Now drink. You need this. Drink it slow, it's really strong stuff," said Zaeed.

Randall slowly took his seat. He was wary, alert, wondering if Zaeed was really there to attack him. After all, most people who had gotten this close to Zaeed Massani, alone, probably didn't have drinks with him. They were probably dead. _This just might be crazy enough to be legit,_ he thought. He took a sip, and the drink gave him the shakes. He flinched against the burn in his throat, and thought he saw Zaeed grin. Which wasn't really a pretty sight. "What the hell is this stuff?" he asked.

"It's better you don't know," said Zaeed. Whatever the drink was, it didn't faze the bounty hunter at all.

In that moment, it was the first time that Randall had taken a good look at the man. The scars on the side of his face were massive, twisting all over it. It carved its way around his cheek, his eye, chin, and through his lip. The skin on that side was weathered, and one of his eyes was colorless, blind. _Either something blew up near him, or somebody shot him._

"I've seen that look. Checking out the scars, are you?" said Zaeed.

"They look good on you," Randall said sarcastically.

The mercenary snorted a laugh. "You're damn right they do, Ezno. Keep up. Drink your drink."

Randall steeled himself, and then took another sip. "So…I'm sitting across from the most feared mercenary in the galaxy. Why aren't you alongside Wrex or Jack, kicking the crap out of me or wanting me dead?"

"I've kicked enough people's asses in my day, Ezno. And we're all dead in the end, so I'm in no hurry to kill you," said Zaeed. He took a sip, and said, "Zaeed Massani, Most Feared Mercenary in the galaxy. I like that. I've never said that out loud."

A few seconds passed, and then Zaeed spoke again.

"I worked for the Illusive Man," he said. "He hired me to work with Shepard because some heads that needed knocking. Then Shepard helped me with a favor after that. Some people who needed killing. That's what I do. But you? No. That's not you."

The drink was already starting to cause a buzz. Between sips, Randall said, "I don't know about that. I've killed a lot of people on missions for Cerberus. More than a hundred. Blown up a lot of stuff. And the high value targets that Cerberus had me bring in alive, I'm sure they're all dead. Eighteen of them. Exactly. That's how many we captured. Jack and Wrex are right about me."

"What Jack thinks, that's all about Cerberus. That's not about you. And Wrex? He'd just as soon kill you as look at you on a good day."

"Another drink," said Randall, banging his glass twice.

"Now you're talking," said Zaeed, as he poured them each another. "All right Ezno, so what happened out there?"

Randall took a sip. "I already told you guys. I don't want to talk about it," he said bluntly.

"Yeah you do, you chicken shit," said Zaeed. "Yeah you do. Drink."

Randall leaned forward, and looked at Zaeed with narrow eyes. "What do you care about all this?"

Zaeed spoke between sips. "Let's just say, Ezno, that there was this one bloke I once knew. He was just like you. And you need to talk a lot worse than he did."

Randall slumped his shoulders, groaned, and downed his drink. He pushed his glass toward the bottle, and tried not to look up. "I'll be too drunk to talk in a minute," he deadpanned.

"Then start talking. If you pass out, I'll drag your sorry ass out and leave it in the hallway. Wrex will probably stomp on you again, or maybe he'll just take a dump on you. And there is nothing, nothing worse in this galaxy than the smell of krogan shit. So your friend Inali did what? She's barely alive. Did she piss off the wrong person, saw something she wasn't supposed to, what?"

"No. No! Dammit, Cerberus did that to her, because she was protecting me."

Zaeed slid another drink over to him. "She's half your size. Why did _she_ need to protect _you_?"

Randall took a sip. "She wasn't just my handler. Inali and I, we…"

"Ohhh, please, where there's a woman involved? Just let me guess."

"All right all right, yeah. We hooked up. Cerberus doesn't allow handlers and their troops to get together, but we wanted to. We kept it quiet. She…"

Zaeed poured himself another drink, and waited for Randall to answer. It took a few seconds.

"She cared about me," said Randall. He took a sip, and gathered his thoughts before he moved on. It was getting tough. "Cerberus," he said. "Us soldiers, they think we're all brawn. They think we're dummies and want to control us, like some sort of fucking machines. I should've seen it coming. Inali found out. She cared about me, so she helped me."

"Now that's a brave girl," said Zaeed. "She risked her life. She could've written you off."

Randall let that thought sink in. "Written me off. That's what Inali should've done," he said. After a pause, he continued. "All these implants I have, these things I can do. Those bastards were turning me into a robot one little piece at a time. Why the hell didn't I see it?"

Zaeed took another sip. "Because you're a soldier. Me, I'm freelance, I don't trust anyone. You should see some of the bastards I've worked for. Not a damn one of them worth trusting. But you, you're a soldier. You're taught to trust your leaders with your life. Hey, why wouldn't you trust them? And then they lied to you."

Randall looked at Zaeed. "Lied to us. Me, my squad, all of us. They always said that Cerberus was here to protect humanity. Protect our families. And what happens? I had to kill people I knew. People I've served with."

Zaeed took a long sip, then bared his teeth against the burn of the alcohol. "That's a bear. These people you killed, how long had you fought alongside them?"

Randall slowly tapped his glass against the table, and grit his teeth. "Some of them, I'd known for a few years. In the field, it wasn't about Cerberus. It was about fighting for the guys alongside you."

Zaeed raised his glass. "To the guys who fought alongside us. The ones who watched our back."

Randall clinked his glass with Zaeed's, then took another sip. "I need a refill."

"You got it," said Zaeed. "Might as well. Neither of us is going out to a bar tonight."

Randall focused his eyes on the bottom of his glass. Then, he began sullenly, "For all I know, my whole squad is dead. The worst part…" He paused for a moment, and then continued. His voice was distant, as though he was thinking out loud, and not having a conversation. "The worst part was how almost everyone on that station was out to kill me. I knew some of them. Good people, who I would've taken a bullet for, and they tried to kill me like they didn't even know me. And Inali, who cared about me, who'd never harmed anything in her life, look what they did to her."

Zaeed said nothing.

Randall continued, his voice low, "I was in a firefight on the station, and some of those guys I knew were shooting at me. We were just feet away from each other, I swear. They said some things."

After a moment, Zaeed said, "Go on, Ezno." He refilled Randall's glass. "You might need this."

"No I don't," replied Randall. The emotions still simmered a slow burn inside him, like battery acid. But they were beginning to boil to the surface. If he wasn't careful, he wouldn't be able to hold it back for long. He spoke slowly, "They said that Inali cried out for me. They said that I couldn't save her. They said that I couldn't save… that I couldn't save shit." His voice was beginning to shake. "Inali, that woman up in the medical bay, she cried out for me. When she was crying out, they were jabbing her and cutting her with scalpels. She cried out, and they were putting things into her body, and cables into her head, and she was saying my name. She was calling for me to help her, where was I? She saved my life, so they took her, and then they…" He stood up, turned away from the table, and took a step toward the door.

Zaeed refilled his own glass when Randall was in mid-step. "Going somewhere?" he asked.

When Randall turned, there were tears on his face. "I don't care who the hell you are, Zaeed Massani, or how the hell dangerous you are, but if you tell anybody that you saw me like this, I will freaking end you."

Zaeed leaned back in his chair. "I didn't see anything, soldier," he said. "Now. It's time, Ezno. Say what you have to say." The mercenary's scars made him look ancient.

Randall tried to hold it back, but couldn't. He was drowning in guilt, and felt like he couldn't breathe. The words came out with a life of their own.

"I…freaking…killed…her! Don't you get it? If it wasn't for me, none of this happens to Inali. She helped me because she cared about me…and so they turned her into this thing. Down on the planet, I shot her. I used these damn biotic implants that I've got, that I thought gave me all this power, I used them on her, dammit, and when it was all over…when it was all over, she went and asked me to -" Randall stopped speaking, looked down, and put his hands on the nearest chair. His knuckles were white.

Zaeed finished his thought, as though it was the most ordinary thing in the world: "She asked you to kill her." And then in a low voice, he added, "If she'd asked me, I probably would have done it. It's a good thing for Inali that she only asked you once."

 _He's right_ ,thought Randall. _If she'd asked me again, I might have done it._ At that, Randall lost it. He hoped that Zaeed couldn't see his face, because it felt like the tears were coming like a river. He didn't look up, and hissed, "Kill her. She told me to kill her. She fought them to the end, she asked me, she freaking begged me to kill her. And I couldn't do it, I was too weak to help Inali. I couldn't do it, I couldn't even say it just now. I should have killed her. Why the fuck didn't you just let me fucking say it?"

Zaeed leaned forward and gestured Randall back to the table. "Hey. Soldier. Sit down. You look me right in the eye. You've got this. Face me."

Finally, slowly, Randall did. He looked Zaeed in the eye, and felt like he was facing a judge, jury, and executioner. "Jack's right about me. I'm a murderer. I was working for murderers, and I fed innocent people to a meat grinder. I don't deserve to be here."

Zaeed spoke steadily, firmly, trying to get the words through. "Listen to me, mate, and listen good, because I'm only going to say this once. I've worked for murderers, and worked right alongside them. I've done bad things for bad people. And that's not you. You're no murderer. You're a soldier. And you did your duty, you did what soldiers do. You swore an oath. You trusted your leaders, they promised you loyalty and so you gave it. But they didn't give it back. Those Cerberus bastards lied, they're the ones who didn't hold up their end. They're the ones who murdered people. Not you. Forget about what Jack said. She's like that because Cerberus ruined her life. They took her away when she was a kid, and they told her that her parents died. They did shit to her, and they did it for years. She looks at you, she sees the enemy. But when she sees Inali in that medical bay? Every time Jack sees Inali, she sees herself, that's for damn sure. She knows that Cerberus could've done that to her."

Randall began to catch his breath. He'd had a hard enough time believing what he'd just been through over the last week, let alone what he was hearing now. "Cerberus…did things to kids? They did things to _kids_? Son of a bitch…son of a bitch…," he said.

Zaeed continued, "You want to know what else Jack hates? Your humanity. She's seen you've got a shred of humanity in you. I know that girl. I've seen her angry, and I've seen her hurt, and I saw her in that mess hall when you told her that she was right. She sees that you care about Inali, and how you turned on Cerberus when you found out the truth. She knows that maybe, just maybe, you're not a monster, and she might have to cut her enemy a little slack. And that's driving her mad. I've been around her a while. Jack can hate like nobody's business. She'll be there for your friend Inali, all the way. Maybe someday, she might not even hate you."

"Yeah, right."

"Well, come on. I only said she might not hate you. I didn't say you'd get any presents from her at Christmas."

Randall was still dazed. He knew that Zaeed was trying to help, but damn if he would let himself accept that. "Inali's here no thanks to me," he said. "She's half dead because of me."

Zaeed's response was quick. "You saved Inali, you asshole. Don't go blaming yourself for what Cerberus did to her. You could've killed her down there. You didn't. She's alive. She's in that medical bay right now and she has a chance, and you're the reason she has it. And I know why you didn't kill her, and it's not because you wanted to give one last 'fuck-you' to Cerberus."

Randall said quietly, "It's because I love her."

The mercenary laughed, loudly, and took another drink. "There it is, the big secret's out. You can say it louder than that, Ezno. Everyone knows."

Randall said, annoyed, "I love her, all right?"

"Well no shit. Really? The hell, you say. Now that calls for another drink."

"Make mine a shot. Good christ," said Randall as he wiped his face.

Zaeed filled the glasses to the top. "Then it's a double shot this time. You're drinking for Inali. Don't worry, I won't tell anyone how much you love her. Badass killers like us, we've got a reputation to keep."

After a moment, Randall asked, "That guy you knew, the one who was like me. Could he hold his liquor?"

"Couldn't drink for shit. Told you, you're just like him," said Zaeed. "Good man, though."


	4. It Sure Isn't Las Vegas

_One-shot story inspired by the Mass Effect spinoff game, "Mass Effect: Infiltrator." The Alliance has decided to ship Randall Ezno to help the Alliance's security troops at a refugee camp. It isn't much of a place for starting over. But, it's a start. Takes place after the events of my other one-shot, "Counselor Jack."_

 **It Sure Isn't Las Vegas**

The temperature at Alliance refugee camp RD471 on planet Amasis was a sweltering 35 degrees Centigrade, or 95 degrees Fahrenheit as they used to call it. The refugees, the Alliance's aid workers, and the security forces, called the place "Tent City." No other names had stuck. Rumor had it that someone suggested the name "Las Vegas," but no one thought it was funny.

Former Cerberus infiltrator Randall Ezno, a new member of the camp's security force, stood in line in the camp's Green Zone where the Alliance's troops and aid workers were housed. He waited to use a public comm panel, their only contact with the outside world. He had just loosened his Alliance battle dress uniform and was drinking from a water bottle when the privacy curtain for the comm panel was drawn aside.

"Next up," an aid worker said, holding the curtain as she brushed aside a tear.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Don't mind me," she replied. "I just miss home."

Randall nodded. "You, me, and all of us," he said. "Thanks." He drew the curtain behind him so that he could have some privacy. He only had a few minutes, and there were a lot of aid and security people standing in line behind him waiting for their turn. He scratched at his shoulder, again, like he'd been doing for the last five minutes. _I swear, these Alliance guys need better tailors._

As he sat down, he looked at the blank monitor, and became lost in his thoughts for a moment. There were very few places at the camp with any real privacy, and a moment like this was one of them. He took a breath and rubbed his eyes. It had been another night where he had some relief, with a peaceful dream about home. Then he woke up, and thought about where he was, and how he got here. And, just damn all that.

He put his hand on his uniform's Alliance symbol, and then on the symbol for his unit. The Alliance's 73rd infantry division symbol was a blue shield with a red diagonal cross, and a stylized lion stitched in yellow at the center of the cross. The phrase "Vestigia Nulla Retrorsum" framed the symbol from below—Latin for "No Step Backwards." He supposed that it was good advice. And classier than the "Humanity First" slogan that Cerberus always seemed to use.

 _Private Randall Ezno, Alliance soldier. A year ago, I was an infiltrator for Cerberus, a sergeant, and I believed in Cerberus like nobody's business. Now that's all gone, and a lot of people ended up dead, and I'm here. Wherever "here" is._

His clock had run for twenty seconds already, but Randall didn't notice.

 _I guess the Alliance thinks that they've gotten everything out of me that I know about Cerberus. So they've shipped me where they need boots on the ground, somebody, anybody who'll help. That, or they still just plain don't know what to do with me. Why else would they ship me to an armpit like this. So I guess both the Alliance and Cerberus think I'm expendable, like yesterday's news._

He looked at the clock. He'd lost half a minute already. Dammit. He logged on, and scanned his Inbox. _The usual announcements. Advisories on hygiene, some really practical advice like "don't play on the freeway," blah blah blah. And I stood in line for ten minutes to read this._

He wrote a short letter to his parents, to let him know that he was okay. At least he had that much of a connection out there, somewhere. He thought of his former friends from Cerberus, and wondered how many of them were still alive. He scanned the inbox one last time, when he heard the terminal announce the arrival of a new message. He tensed up when he saw that the message originated from the Alliance Military Medical Center on the Citadel. The subject line was simple: "Update on Patient Jane Doe #9." _Finally, the hospital wrote back_. _Please, just please, let it be good news about Inali._

Hoping for good news, but dreading that it might be bad news, he clicked on the message. As he began to read, he slowly closed his eyes, then he shook his head in disappointment. The message didn't say much:

"PVT Ezno, Patient Jane Doe #9's status remains unchanged. We remain hopeful, and we will continue to provide her with the best treatment possible. We archived your most recent personal message to the patient, and are saving it along with the others. We will advise you if the patient's status changes. Please don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or problems. Best regards, Dr. [REDACTED] Alliance Military Medical Center - Citadel."

Randall stared at the last line. He quietly hissed, "Dr. 'Redacted'? Again? Christ. Those jerks from Alliance IT security won't even give me the name of the guy who wrote a bland message like that?" He glared at the screen, until the obvious reality sank in a moment later that the comm panel didn't care if he was annoyed or not. He rubbed his eyes, and then took a breath. At least they were still writing back.

Randall began to type, knowing that his time at the comm panel was almost up. Randall politely thanked the doctors for the message, and asked them to keep him updated. He paused, and then added an attachment with some personal words for Inali. He didn't know if she would ever read them, but it was good to hope. His typed words were sympathetic and loving. His thoughts and feelings, as usual, were restless and tense.

 _Maybe one day, Inali, you'll wake up out of that coma_ , he thought _. Maybe, the Alliance doctors on the Citadel will find a way to heal what Cerberus did to you. And, I swear to God, I will get every last one of those Cerberus bastards who hurt you, and you'll be safe. Not a Jane Doe anymore._

He pressed Send, and logged off. Then a dialog box then appeared, asking him if he wanted to complete a customer satisfaction survey. He thought about using his biotics to pick up the comm panel and throw it against the wall. Instead, he stepped away from the terminal and pulled the curtain aside. "All yours," he said to the next person in line, and an aid worker eagerly took his place. Randall hooked up his com line, scratched at his damn shoulder again, and hefted his rifle and sidearm. It was time for him to move out. _Let's hope that the refugees are behaving themselves today._

His patrol mate, a corporal named Cherise, waited by an open doorway that led to the exit gate for the Green Zone. She had dark eyes, dark skin and short hair, and always seemed to have a smile. Funny how some people could let the world's problems bounce off them, and keep rolling. He admired that about her.

"Finished your message, Randall? Somebody special?" she asked as they walked.

Randall looked down. "It was for somebody special all right," he replied. "But she's in the hospital, in a coma. Really can't say anything else-it involved a mission."

"Oh," she said, and her smile disappeared for a moment. "A mission. I'm sorry to hear that. Really. Well, if you ever want to talk, I'm here. Everyone's on hard times these days. At least we've all got that in common." After an uncomfortable silence, she added, "Well, let's check our coms. We've got a lot of refugees to protect."

Randall blinked as though he'd just been awoken from a nap. "Sorry about that. I wasn't ignoring you. I appreciate it, really. I guess I'm not the best guy to be around after using the comm panel. Testing, one two three."

"You're okay. That comm panel's great but it bums people out. And, I've got you on the com. Are you reading this?"

"Yep. Clear as a bell. Which areas of the refugee camp are we policing today?"

"We've got area 16 first. I'll start with the West side, you take the East. See you in a few."

They exited the secure compound where the aid workers and soldiers were housed. The refugee camp began less than twenty yards past the gate, and it was as though they had appeared in another world. Randall wondered how long it would be until he heard a plea for help. Silently, he began to count to himself. A man with bandages on his head called to him from a nearby shelter when his count reached forty-three.

"Will the Alliance be moving us out of here soon? They told us we'd be here no more than a week. It's been two weeks," said the man.

Randall said, "I'm sorry sir, but I'm new here myself. They haven't told us anything."

"Two weeks," the man repeated. He leaned closer to Randall, and his voice began to rise. "They can't keep us here too long. It's too risky. Won't the Reapers find us?"

Randall listened in sympathy, and hoped that the man wouldn't lose his composure. Fear was contagious at the camp. They had all seen death already, and the more people arrived in the camps, the more tempting a target it became for the Reapers. _Hell, I'm afraid too, but I can't admit that. The only reason the Reapers aren't here already is because they're having a good old time killing a lot more innocent people everywhere else._

A few bystanders stopped to listen. Randall kept full attention on the bandaged man, and his tone was level as he said, "I'll talk to my CO, sir, and I'll tell him your concerns. If you're worried about it, I'm sure a lot of others are too. I'm sure that we won't be here too much longer. The Alliance is aware of things, believe me. If we hear anything, we'll let all of you know."

Randall moved on. As he walked away, he heard the bandaged man complain, "Same stuff they're always telling us. Doesn't matter who's in the uniform."

Randall continued his patrol. He walked slowly between the tents, prefab shelters, and other makeshift structures. He looked for people in distress, or any signs of trouble. His eyes probed every space, missing nothing. Most of the refugees barely noticed him. Others stepped back and regarded him with suspicion. Without realizing it, he patted his waist, with the secure feeling that his sidearm was ready if he needed it. The reports of theft and assault among the refugees had dropped off since Randall and the latest Alliance security forces had arrived. But really, that only meant that conditions had improved from "awful" to "really bad."

Randall wondered at the size of the refugee camp as it stretched into the distance, and remembered what they had told the new soldiers in their briefing. The Alliance commander in charge of the soldiers at the camp said that there were four camps on the planet, each of them as big as this one. Not to mention scattered people that hadn't really settled anywhere yet. Amasis was a small colony, and it wasn't made to handle the flood of people who had fled the Reapers. But it was the best that the Alliance could do for now. _Of course, the Reapers don't care about any of that. How many thousands of refugees landed here since the Reapers started their holocaust? From how many planets?_

A group of children ran past him, laughing. At least the misery here wasn't complete.

He stepped to the side and allowed three women, humans, to walk by with some gallon jugs of water. Their faces were drawn from hunger, and their clothes were wrinkled. They probably hadn't washed them in days. Randall's nose crinkled for a moment from smell of some rotting garbage, and he made a mental note to report what he was seeing. _Dirty clothes, loose trash, rotting garbage. Stench of urine and shit too, and it's getting worse. This camp's going to have an outbreak of TB or cholera if we don't get a handle on this._

He thought of the Green Zone's clean toilets, bunkbeds, and mess hall, and then felt guilty as he watched a refugee scrubbing a stain off some clothes.

 _Two weeks that I've been here_ , he thought. _And months since I left Cerberus behind. I can't believe it. It just seems like a lifetime ago. At least I'm not getting my ass kicked by that damn krogan Wrex anymore._

Randall pressed his hand against his torso, and he could still feel when Wrex broke his ribs. He had just escaped Cerberus, and the _Normandy_ crew interrogated him. Wrex got pissed when Randall told them about Cerberus' secret "X-1" experiment, which involved a now-dead krogan and Cerberus' perverted science. To Wrex, Randall was guilty by association and had no honor. He had beaten Randall up more than once.

As Randall walked along, he made eye contact with a drell man in another tent. At the man's feet were several flimsy bags. He might have been sorting what was left of his family's belongings. "Hello. How are you holding up?" asked Randall.

The drell shrugged, then said, "No Reapers here. And at least my children slept through the night."

"Are you getting food? Any complaints, problems?"

The man paused, and then said, "No problems, sir."

"If there are any problems at all, let us know. We're here to help." _Something's not right. Either that, or he's the only refugee here who doesn't have a problem or a complaint._

The drell nodded, then looked away and returned to his bags. He pulled the flap on his tent shut a moment later.

Randall walked by a group of tents that were laid out side by side, as though they were houses along a makeshift street. Others were more scattered, with alleyways barely wide enough to step through. He almost stepped into a sewage channel that someone dug straight through the area. _Miserable, but I guess it could be worse. It could always get worse._

He heard a baby's forlorn cries from a nearby tent. A small can with a single flower stood on a small box inside the tent. An asari infant sat on the ground, reaching up its arms toward its mother, who was washing something in a basin. _It really is the universal symbol for "Pick me up and hold me, Mommy."_

The child's mother gently picked up the baby and soothed her, resting the baby's head on her shoulder. The mother and the baby might have been a little bit thin, but at least these people were getting fed.

"Is your child okay?" he asked.

The asari woman, startled, turned around and then took a step back. "She's just a little hungry. Thank you for asking."

Randall began, "If you have any problems, please let us – "

"We will, soldier. Thank you." Then the woman turned away. The asari infant looked curiously at Randall, over his mother's shoulder.

Randall had a hollow, unsettling feeling in his stomach that made him feel cold. He hesitated, and then asked, "Has there been any stealing?"

The asari woman turned, her eyes betraying a moment of surprise. She opened her mouth to speak, but said nothing.

Randall remembered how Cerberus had played upon his distrust of non-humans, and trained him to be an infiltrator, a trained killer. Keeping the peace was something that he wasn't used to. Awkwardly, he asked, "Ma'am, I was sent here because of reports of violence among the refugees. We're here to help. If you need any help at all…medical, food…or even law enforcement…please tell us." He turned to step away.

"You're new. We've seen you around. You always ask people how they're doing when you walk through. Most of you don't even ask," she said.

Randall shrugged, "I'll take that as a compliment. If they're not asking, it isn't because they don't care. You can talk to any of us. We're all here to help."

The asari woman hesitated, then shook her head. "No. Not all of you," she said.

 _Uh oh._ A moment passed. Then, quietly, he asked, "Is there something you need to tell me?"

...

Randall spoke with the asari woman, who introduced him to other refugees and their families. He went out of his way to learn as many of their names as he could, too.

Over the next few days, he asked them if he could borrow some of their clothes. He began leaving the Green Zone at night, and each night he found a poorly-lit area with a stashed clothing pile waiting for him. Old shirts with frayed sleeves, formal clothes that were wrinkled and worn from weeks of repeated use, trousers that were torn from one too many falls. Clothes that were too big, too small, and were never clean. He put his infiltrator training to good use, and explored the camp in the same way he would scout a target. Staying out of sight. Quietly watching. Listening. And forgetting nothing.

He was amazed at how he began to see the camp differently. In the field, he was trained to notice that animals and even insects in wooded areas would become quiet and stop moving at the approach of a predator. It was the same in the camp, how people became quiet or stepped into their shelters when some groups of people walked by. Those groups became easy to spot – they were always better clothed, better fed, and often had the narrow eyes of a hunter looking for his prey. But they would usually wait for Alliance patrols to pass by before making their own way.

When Randall saw where they lived, he noticed that they had much more belongings than most of the other refugees. Not surprising - because most of it was stolen from the others. Whatever stolen goods they didn't keep, they would sell or trade on a black market. It was right there in plain sight, and he always just assumed that the camp had its "haves" and "have nots." It didn't stop with robbery and extortion, either. Randall saw one vendor at a black market slip a plastic bag to a refugee. He saw that refugee getting high with red sand a few minutes later.

Then one night, he heard a scream. Running toward the sound, he distantly saw a group of four men dragging someone from his tent. He arrived just in time to see the man punched to the ground and then kicked. One of the men stood at the tent's entrance and held back the man's wife and child. A second, apparently the leader, was standing over the man and roughly grabbed his shoulders. Two others faced away from the action, keeping bystanders away.

 _Okay,_ thought Randall. _Four guys. Seen them before. Young. No weapons visible. They don't see me._ In the moment that he was sizing up the situation, he heard the group's leader speak to the victim, his voice dark with menace:

"Not gonna pay us? Now your wife and kid are gonna pay," said the leader.

 _Oh hell no,_ thought Randall. _Enough of this shit…_

Standing in the dark, Randall felt a surge rush through him as his biotic implants charged for the first time in months. Time seemed to stop, his hair stood on end and his focus became razor sharp. It felt like a fire burned under his skin.

He took a breath. _I want these guys alive, not dead._ The surge began to ease back. He made a fist and focused on the four gang members. _Now!_

Randall whipped his right arm and a salvo of four biotic missiles leaped into the air. Streams of blue biotic energy struck each of the four men, and they all fell like bowling pins. They were still in a daze when Randall rushed at them in the darkness.

As the victim's family pulled him to safety, Randall grabbed the first guard by the shoulders as he staggered to his feet. He shoved the guard backward off balance and then pulled him forward, driving their heads into a collision. The guard saw a flash of light at the moment of impact, and then immediately blacked out. The second guard's vision was still blurry when he was knocked out by Randall's elbow strike to his nose. The third guard clumsily lunged at Randall and then was struck by a roundhouse kick to the head that finished him for the night.

Their leader had regained his bearings and grabbed a shank made with sharpened wood from his pocket. He attacked Randall's dark shape from behind and swung it upward, ready to bury it in Randall's ribs. But he swung through empty air, and then found himself clumsily grasping as he was biotically lifted into the air. The shocked man yelled a stream of confused obscenities.

"Damn bully cowards," said Randall. Then he yelled at the leader, "Leave these people alone. Or I swear to God this is what all of you are going to get."

Randall swung his hand, and biotically threw the floating man through the air. The man screamed and tumbled until he finally crashed through one of the tents for the gang's black market.

Randall continued to dress in refugees' clothing for the next several nights. He continued to put his infiltrator skills to good use, and began to sleep better than he had in weeks.

...

About a week later, the Alliance commander in charge of the camp had Randall discreetly brought to his office. He was not in a good mood.

"It's one thing for a few assaults to happen overnight in a refugee camp with over a hundred thousand people," he said. "That type of thing is expected." He stalked the room, and then lowered his head. Randall noticed that a vein was bulging in his forehead. "It is another thing entirely when, every single night, about a dozen or more able-bodied people in their 20s are found dazed or unconscious in just a few hours' time. A few of them were soldiers under my command who were in areas where they shouldn't have been, doing things that they shouldn't have been doing. And not one refugee, not one Alliance soldier saw an assailant, witnessed a fistfight, brawl or even so much as an argument related to the incidents."

Randall stood at attention and said nothing, but did his best to suppress a grin.

The commander walked around Randall slowly as he spoke. "The doctors at the medical facility said that many of the injuries were consistent with assaults with biotics. Who also had special hand-to-hand combat training." He stopped, and stared into Randall's eyes. "I can think of only a handful of the troops here who fit that profile." The commander sat down on the front of his desk, and rubbed his eyes. "These men who were assaulted... most of them were members of gangs. And the soldiers, apparently, were helping them. But you know that. Don't you, Ezno?"

A moment passed. _I guess it's my turn to talk,_ thought Randall. "Permission to speak, sir?"

The commander stood in front of Randall and folded his arms. "Get on with it, Private."

"Sir. I had it on good authority that those men were stealing from the non-human refugees. That they've even been dealing in drugs like hallex and red sand. I watched them for a week. I've seen them do it. Frankly, they're all amateurs at keeping a low profile. They're cocky sons of bitches. But they're brutal. Fear is what's keeping people from talking. Some of our people were helping them, and so the refugees didn't know who to trust. Neither did I."

"Ezno," the commander began, "the Alliance is here to keep the peace until we can find a place for these people to go. I needed more boots on the ground because some of these refugees had begun to prey on each other. If there's a vigilante prowling around out there, night after night, opening a can of whoop ass on people that are causing trouble, then the refugees might think that the Alliance just can't handle things here, and that things are about to fall apart. Or…"

Randall thought he saw a light at the end of the tunnel. "Or, what, sir…?"

"Or, the refugees will think that whoever is prowling the camp, he's on their side, and Alliance CO has secretly decided to stay out of his way. Or, maybe better yet, that the Alliance CO may even be behind it, and is using these people to keep this camp in line. The gangs are shitting themselves right now. They've dialed things way back, and the refugees are starting to feel safer at night. I can't deny the results. So let's just say that I'm going to see to it that you aren't the only loose cannon on this deck. We're officially spreading word that we'll keep our eyes open, and we're unofficially spreading word that we know exactly who it is. And, that if people act like criminals, and somebody is kicking their asses because of it, that's not our problem."

Randall didn't know where things were going to lead next, but he was sure that he was going to enjoy typing his next message to Inali.

"And one other thing, Ezno," said the commander. "I'm telling you the same thing that I'll tell the others. First, keep me posted at all times, but do not use official channels. Second, you will take aggressive action as you need to, but if you start becoming a part of the problem, I will lock you up, throw away the key, and send for that krogan that was kicking the crap out of you on the _Normandy_."

"Understood, sir." Randall felt his face flush. _That was in my file? Well thanks a heap, Shepard._

"Good. Now get the hell out of my office and stay out of trouble. This conversation never happened."

As Randall closed the door behind him, he heard the commander say under his breath, "Great. Got a bunch of Batman wannabes sneaking around my camp."

It took fifteen minutes before Randall finally found someone to explain who "Batman" was.


	5. The Face of the Enemy, Part 1

_One-shot story inspired by the game Mass Effect: Infiltrator. This story takes place after my other one-shot, "It Sure Isn't Las Vegas." Randall Ezno's infantry unit has been reassigned and transferred out of the Amasis refugee camps. They're about to go into the combat zones against the Reapers. Randall gets his first look at what's coming._

 **The Face of the Enemy**

Randall Ezno sat in a completely silent briefing room with several hundred of his fellow soldiers. The Alliance's 73rd infantry division had been transferred from the Amasis refugee camps, and were now getting their first look at their new enemy, the ground troops used by the Reapers. Monitors showed holo projector footage that had been filmed by helmet and body cams worn by Alliance troops who were already in the combat zones. The audio, thankfully, was muted. What Randall saw sickened him.

"This is the face of our enemy," the commander began. He kept his voice even, as he'd given the briefing before. Still, he couldn't hide his distaste for the subject. "Reaper husks, for lack of a better phrase, are the Reaper version of zombies. They form the bulk of the Reaper ground forces that we've encountered so far. They're usually created from humanoids, but sometimes they use other races. The Reapers create them by taking corpses…and sometimes, some poor living people…and impaling them, on spikes like these. Those spikes drain what belongs to you, and replace it with what belongs to them. And when they're done, the husk is all that remains. Soldiers call these spikes 'dragon's teeth.' "

The scene from the soldier's cam was like a dark vision from ancient and medieval history. They saw dozens of spikes, each with a victim impaled upon it. The soldier turned him cam toward the ground, the better to see piles of hair at the foot of each spike. It had fallen off of the victims' heads during the conversion process. It lay among some other rotting material. The soldier pushed at the pile with his foot, and then shook it off hard. _Just piles of hair and some sort of rotting flesh,_ thought Randall. _Or God knows what. No teeth in that pile, so maybe these things can still bite. Couple of bones, maybe._

The helmet cam returned to the victims on the spikes. They were sexless now, and there was nothing left to clearly show if they had ever been male or female. Their jaws and limbs were slack, with each of their mouths hanging open in a muted scream. All their eyes glowed, lit from within by a cold, hellish electric charge. Spots of lights glowed from within their bodies too, as though some strange Reaper technology had taken the place of the victims' major veins, arteries, and some of their bones. The soldiers stepped back, aimed their rifles up, and began to dispatch the husks. Then they set explosives to the dragon's teeth.

"Rest in peace," said the soldier sitting to Randall's right. He wrote some notes, and was shaking his head.

"Amen to that," whispered Randall as he scribbled some notes of his own _._

The scene returned to combat footage. "Once they're off the dragon's teeth, here's what's left. Mindless killers. Basically dumb. They follow the most recent commands of other Reaper forces, and we'll get to them in a minute. They're ground-level troops and you can kill them." The footage showed several husks falling dead as they were hit with automatic weapons fire. Sparks and dark green fluid burst from the husks' bodies as they were hit.

"You can even kill them hand-to-hand," the commander continued. The close-up body cam footage showed a husk grab a soldier's arm and chest. Then the soldier punched the husk, swept its legs out from under it, and then drove his boot through the husk's head.

 _Nice move,_ thought Randall. _At least they don't seem to have super-human strength or speed._

"Husks appear to be blind to our tactical cloaks. But they're aggressive, they like to swarm their enemy, and they can hit you with an electrical shock," said the commander. "And if you're too busy fighting them, they'll distract you from bigger problems. Again, we'll get to that. So stay in groups, that's even if you have a cloak, even if you think you're a one-man army. You'd better keep your wits about you, or you'll end up like one of them."

Randall raised an eyebrow. _That last part about the cloak, and the one-man army, might've been directed at me._

"Work as a team. Always," said the commander. The footage became chaotic. A soldier and his squad ran into a blown-out building and took cover in the rubble, forming a perimeter. They shot everything that moved. The soldier turned to the left and then back to the right as more husks seemed to appear out of nowhere. He backed up, sprayed the whole area with rifle rounds, and then the camera swung crazily upward. Static filled the screen and distorted the image as an off-camera husk hit the soldier with an electric shock blast. Several husks pulled the soldier off his feet and threw him to the ground. A spray of human blood struck the camera lens.

Some troops in the audience groaned. "Hey! You're making us watch this?" asked a soldier angrily.

"Way to rally the troops," another deadpanned.

"Wait for it people," said the commander. The camera righted itself again as the soldier grabbed his sidearm and shot a husk. The other husks jerked as they were shot by someone from off-camera. There were more bullet strikes and sparks from the husks' bodies as they fell backward to the ground. Four other soldiers ran shooting into the camera's field-of-view. A field medic pulled the first soldier to his feet. The squad fell back, and the video ended.

"They made it," said the commander. "Like I said. Work as a team. Know when to fight, and when to fall back. Remember, these videos are here to make a point."

…

The more Randall watched, the more sickened and disgusted he became. He had seen battle and death before, but not like this. It was never, ever like this. He learned about the other elements of the Reaper army. About "cannibals," which were made from the bodies of humans and batarians. They ate the bodies of their enemies and fallen comrades, and used it to grow a chitinous exoskeleton. About "marauders," made from corrupted turians, which led husks and cannibals into combat. About "brutes," made from the bodies of krogans and turians. Because the Reapers just had to harness krogan strength and blood rage, as if they hadn't stacked the deck already.

 _Sick fuckers on top of it all,_ thought Randall.

"Last, but definitely not least," the commander had said. "Banshees. They're corrupted from asari, and they're usually found leading Reaper strike forces. When you see one of these things, you put the other bad guys on the back burner. Short of a Reaper destroyer that'll be calling the shots, these things will be the ones in charge on the ground. You either stay clear of these things, or if you can't, you take these them out first. Got it?"

Randall felt the color drain from his face as he watched the footage of soldiers fighting for their lives against banshees. Where the graceful lines of an asari's face and body should have been, there was an abomination. It had a gaunt, emaciated form with sunken eyes, and its face bore an evil visage like a skull. Its skinny, bony body was like a dessicated corpse, and it must have weighed a fraction of what it did in its previous life. It approached quickly as it warped its way forward, disappearing and then reappearing as it moved. It was almost like it was hopping through the air. Then it launched devastating attacks with biotics.

The visual struck home for Randall. _It moves just like Inali did after Cerberus turned her into a monster. My God. And it attacks just like Inali did, too._

Randall was locked into his thoughts and couldn't shake them loose. He couldn't concentrate. It all brought back memories from months before, when he had escaped Cerberus. It was all bad enough that he thought that Cerberus had killed his close friend, Inali Renata. He stole Cerberus secrets, fought his way to escape, and fled to a desert giant planet named LV426 to await a rendezvous with an Alliance ship. While he was there, Cerberus had tried to kill him one last time. They sent a monster to kill him, and damn it to hell, they used Inali.

Cerberus had taken Inali prisoner days before, but they hadn't killed her. They had done much, much worse. They forcibly transformed her into a cyborg, a remote controlled killing machine, whose only purpose was to kill him. They fought, and Inali's consciousness had surfaced at the end. They both survived, but Inali – or, what was left of her – was barely alive, and had been in a coma at the Alliance's Military Medical Center on the Citadel for months now.

Randall was still haunted by his first sight of what she had become. Inali had the most beautiful green eyes he had ever seen, and her hair was a soft auburn cascade with curls. But that day, her skin was a bleached, cadaverous pale. There was a red demon glow of biotic implants from behind Inali's eyes, and from under her skin. The red glow was bright even in the sunlight. Her hair was gone, and ugly thick cables ran from her midsection to the back of her head, to power the machinery that Cerberus used to manipulate her body. She floated through the air, and sometimes disappeared, moved, and then reappeared. Just like the banshees did. But It was Inali's cold, lifeless stare when she first attacked him that haunted him the most. She didn't show any sign that she recognized him, and attacked without hesitating. She attacked mechanically, and mercilessly, and she used biotic powers again and again.

 _Just like these banshees do._

For a moment, the footage included audio. The banshee let out a screech as it approached, the voice of a lost soul damned into service of the Reapers. The commander said, "Every banshee makes that sound. All of them. If you hear that sound, get ready. You've got maybe a minute tops before you're fighting it."

When Randall heard the banshee, he looked away from the monitor. He scribbled the word, _SHIT,_ and then made himself watch the screen again. His thoughts were consumed with the memory of Inali's screams, from when she finally began to break free from Cerberus' control on LV426. She had cried out and called his name, her voice distorted from the terrible machinery inside her. He remembered feeling empty, helpless, having no idea how to save her.

Then the audio cut out. Randall's heart was pounding. He tried not to flinch as the battle cam footage showed a first-person moment as a banshee swung its arms down, with long sharp claws, and raked a cornered soldier. Then four soldiers began to overpower the banshee with gunfire. He tried to write more notes, but his mind was swamped by memories. His hand was sweating and starting to shake.

 _I had to shoot Inali on LV426, too._

The banshee's final death throes finally sent him over the edge. Its body convulsed and imploded. Randall imagined the same thing happening to Inali, with her beautiful face crushed from the inside like an aluminum can. His stomach twisted as though a fist had squeezed it tight, and then the acid burn of bile flooded his mouth. Leaping from his seat, he shoved his way to the nearest trash can and vomited. His gut churned and he felt the eyes of everyone in the room as he spat out the bile. There was a collective groan in the briefing room.

"Aw, man, really? Be a man already," said one soldier.

"I heard the spaghetti was pretty bad at lunch today," said another.

"Knock it the hell off!" shouted the commander at the group, his eyes burning hot with anger. He turned toward Randall and said, "Soldier. You all right?"

Randall coughed, wiped his mouth, and then took a breath as he composed himself. He turned to the commander and said, "No excuse, sir. It won't happen again."

"Walk it off and take your seat," said the commander. He turned back to the group and growled, "Know this, people. A couple of guys get sick every damn time I give this briefing. He won't be the last. Look again at that holo feed. Take a good long look. Anybody who sees what the Reapers do and says he isn't freaked out is just a fucking liar. But that's our enemy, and we are damn well going to fight them. And kill them. And every last soldier in here is someone who's going to watch your back out there."

Randall didn't hear any of the commander's words as he sat down. A stark realization hit him, one that he had no reason to believe, one that didn't make sense, but he believed it all the same. _I'm going to see one of those banshees one day soon. I won't have a chance in hell._


	6. Inali Wakes Up

_One-shot story inspired by the Mass Effect spinoff game, Mass Effect: Infiltrator. Inali Renata has beaten the odds and survived her ordeal at the hands of Cerberus. She wakes up in an Alliance hospital, and Jack is there to help her._

First, Inali Renata felt the blanket, and the mattress.

It was soft, and warm. The blanket, especially. It felt as soft as a quilt that her grandmother had made years ago. She moved her legs, slowly up, just a little. And then, slowly back down. Was it time to get up yet? No, it was too dark. It couldn't have been time to get up. She could sleep for a while. She thought about rolling over, but no. It must have been the middle of the night. She felt so tired, so very tired. Her throat was sore. She needed to rest.

 _I'll feel better in the morning,_ she thought, and returned to sleep.

…

The sunlight was rising, and Inali began to wake. Before she opened her eyes, she heard a beeping sound. She felt foggy, and the beeping sound seemed distant. _What's that beeping sound? God, my throat is so sore._

A voice said, "How do you feel?" It was a woman's voice.

 _How do I feel?_ wondered Inali. _I feel like you woke me up, and I want to go back to sleep, that's how I feel._ "Throat hurts," she mumbled. "Headache. Got a headache too." She felt the mattress move downward near her hip, as though someone had sat alongside her. She heard the woman's voice again, a little more clearly this time.

"Here. Would you like some water?" the voice asked.

Inali nodded as she started to open her eyes. It was all so strange. She was reclined and looking upward a little. The first thing that she saw was a monitor on the ceiling, of all places. It was directly above her. It showed a soothing image, a scene of waves crashing into a beach at sunset. "That's weird," she said to no one in particular. "Who puts monitors on a ceiling?"

A cup of water was placed at her lips. The familiar sight and feeling of a paper cup, at least that much made sense. The water felt cool, but then spilled all down her chin and down her chest. Her lips felt numb, and her face had a weird pins-and-needles feeling.

"Shh…it's okay," said the woman, soothingly. "You're safe here. You're safe. That was normal with the water. Here, try again."

Inali wondered, _I'm safe? Why's she telling me I'm safe?_ She looked up and tried to rise, then she felt something holding her back. The beeping sound was happening faster. _Wait_ , thought Inali. _I can't get up. I can't -_

"You're all right," said the woman. "Just breathe. You're all right, you're safe here."

There were leather strips restraining Inali's arms and legs. She gasped and jerked all of her limbs hard, and thought for sure that she'd break the restraints clean off the bed. They didn't give an inch. Then a single thought flashed into her mind: _Cerberus. Oh God._ The fog vanished. Inali world was filled with her terror, so heavy that she could almost see it. The world snapped into focus, and Inali's eyes went wide. _That's not a woman,_ she realized. _That's an asari!_

With all her might, she pulled against the restraints again. Nothing. There were four people rushing around her, including the asari. She pulled hard against the restraints yet again as two of them climbed into the bed, pushing down hard on her shoulders. "Stay still," said one of them. "Easy, easy there!" said the other. The third was looking at some medical monitors, one of which was beeping loudly. That person said, "Her heart rate's at 150 and climbing fast, doctor!"

"Let me go!" shouted Inali. "Let me go! Leave me alone!" Then she saw an IV tube attached to her right wrist. The fluid going into her wrist was bluish and translucent. "What the hell is that?" she cried. "Take that out! What are you putting into me, you bitch? Take that damn thing out! I'll rip it out!" She began to flail against the restraints.

"It's medicine. You're safe. You're with the Alliance," said the asari, who was trying to hold her down. "No one's going to hurt you. You're at a hospital. No one's going to hurt you."

"Let me go! Leave me alone! Get that thing out!" shouted Inali. Then she imagined a face, and a flood of terrible memories began to come back. She saw a face, a man that she loved, but she couldn't think of his name. It was as though a part of her memory had vanished into a black hole. _I loved him, I tried to warn him…what was his name? God! I can see his face, why can't I remember his name?! Cerberus, they did those things, those awful things -_

"Get that sedative into the IV," said the asari doctor. A man ran over and began to unwrap a syringe.

Inali's mind was racing. _Cerberus. The Director's goons held me down_ , she remembered. _I saw those machines they were going to use on me. They put things into me. What's that tingling feeling, I feel it all over! It's like ants, it's inside me!_ Finally, a name clicked into her mind. She shouted, "Randall! Ran, _HELP ME! SOMEBODY HELP! Ran!"_

Inali was about to say something else, when she saw one of the faces of the people who were helping to hold her down. It was a woman. She was pushing down on Inali's shoulders and locked eyes with her. And this woman's face, unbelievably, she recognized.

The woman spoke slowly, patiently. "You're all right, Inali. Come on. These people are helping you, got it? Randall Ezno isn't here. He's not here, but he's okay, and you're safe now. You're safe. And your name, 'Inali', it's Cherokee for 'black fox,' isn't it?"

 _I've seen her before_ , thought Inali. _I've seen her. She knows Ran?_

The woman continued, "And your last name. It's Renata. It's Latin for 'born again,' isn't it?" The woman's hair was buzzed short, with a ponytail in back. Her eyes were striking. The woman's words were the first thread of sanity that Inali had, and now Inali's mind worked to find the connection. It was there, but it was just out of her reach. If only she could grab hold. Her mind searched, and she felt like a blind person in a strange place.

 _I remember that. All of that. Who the hell is she? I know somebody? Here? Where the hell is here? How does she know…_

And finally, recognition began to take hold, and Inali's jaw began to drop. Her mouth hung open in amazement. She began to stop resisting, and her breathing began to slow. She took a deep breath.

"Shhh, Inali…," said the woman. "Shhh…that's it. That's it…easy…easy there…"

Inali began to loosen her grip. She noticed, though, that none of the people holding her down had bothered to loosen theirs.

The woman with the buzz cut spoke again. "Now, there. That's it. I see it in your eyes, Inali. You remember me now, don't you? Remember? How I said that we were going to be great friends one day?"

The world around her was getting foggy again, but Inali could see the memory in her mind's eye. The desert planet. Inali remembered the desert planet. _Ran_ , she thought. _Cerberus sent me to that desert planet…they made me try to kill Ran. Then the Alliance sent a ship. This woman…she was from the Alliance ship…._ She began to feel tired as the sedative took hold, and her eyes began to glaze over. Dreamily, she said, "You did say that…you did…you told me your name. It's Jack…your name is Jack."

A slight smile crossed Jack's face, who slowly nodded back. She said, "Atta girl. So you remember me, do you? I'm flattered. My new friend, Inali the 'black fox.' Maybe that's what I'll call you." She took Inali's hand. "Okay. Get some sleep. I'm here for you. Every step, I'll be here for you. I'll still be here when you wake up. Things'll get better now."

Inali's eyes searched the room as the curtain of sleep overtook her. She saw the Alliance logo on the uniforms of the hospital staff. This woman named Jack, for some reason, didn't have the logo on her clothes. The last thing that Inali saw, just before sleep returned, was the soothing image over the hospital bed. It had cycled to another nature scene. And, in that strange way that life seems to bring events into sync, it was now showing a black fox in a forest.

…

The next sensation that Inali felt was, like before, the warmth of her blanket and mattress. This time, they brought her little comfort. _There's that beeping sound again_ , she thought. _So that beeping is from a heart rate monitor. I'm in a hospital bed, with restraints on my arms and legs._

She opened her eyes. _Yep, there they are. Right where they were before. Great. Well, this is all…just, great._

"Dammit," she said.

The beeping of the heart rate monitor was the only sound in the room, like a metronome counting away. It was already getting on her nerves. Looking up, she saw that the ceiling monitor was now showing the Northern Lights. Streaks of otherworldly green and yellow curled and looped against a pitch dark sky. There was a lake below, and it reflected a green glow of its own.

There was a window to Inali's left. The sky outside was a clear brilliant blue over the buildings of the Citadel, and there were a few flagpoles about a fifty yards away. Flags with medical symbols and the Alliance's logo drifted and fell in the breeze. Looking around the room, there was inspirational artwork on the opposite wall, and she could hear some joking small talk in the hallway. A corner table even had some artificial flowers, with the words 'Hang In There' on a small plastic sign.

 _Hang in there,_ she thought dryly. _Yep, got it. I'll try. Good advice._

She looked at her restraints again, and frowned. She made fists with both hands, and tried to pull herself free. It was as futile as it was the day before. _At least,_ she thought, _I guess it was yesterday. It might've been a week ago. Or a month. Who the hell knows._

"Dammit," she said again.

"Well, somebody in this room has a way with words. You're a girl after my own heart," said a woman's voice out of nowhere. The voice didn't come from a loudspeaker. Then, to the left of her hospital bed, Inali heard a creaking sound. Somebody had been laying on a cot alongside. The woman with the buzz cut from yesterday – she called herself Jack, didn't she? – stretched and slowly rose to her feet, then sat in a chair alongside the bed. She said, "The docs were in here a few minutes ago when you first started to wake up. They'll probably be back in a bit."

Inali was still groggy, but the fog wasn't as thick as last time. "At least this isn't Cerberus," she said. "Cerberus wouldn't be showing me touchy-feely nature scenes on a ceiling monitor. And there wouldn't be any flowers or windows with a nice view. That's a one-way window, right?"

Jack looked over her shoulder, and then shook her head. "Oh. That. Sorry black fox, that's not a window. It's a high-res screen, it only looks like a window. But it does show what's out there. That's it, for real. You're in the hospital's secure wing. That wall's made of concrete, they don't want anybody like Cerberus to know you're here."

Inali thought she was going to be sick. She glared and said, "Your name's Jack, right? Well Jack, news flash, I just woke up out of a coma after Cerberus turned me into a freaking machine. And I'm sort of helpless right now. So, do me a favor and stop giving me updates on how Cerberus wants me dead, or worse than dead, all right?"

The heart rate monitor was beeping faster. Jack raised a hand, as though she were holding up a small stop sign. "Easy there, black fox. Easy. I didn't mean it to sound like that. But you're safe here all right."

Her eyes returned to Jack. "You were there on the desert planet," she remembered. "Who are you? What in the hell happened down there? My memory's got holes everywhere. Where's Randall Ezno? Where the hell am I now?"

"One thing at a time, Foxy. I'm Jack. I was a prisoner of Cerberus for a long time. I escaped. I'll tell you all about it, but not right now. I've helped the Alliance a few times, and I just happened to be on the _Normandy_ when they picked up you and your friend. Randall Ezno, he…Ezno's okay, far as I know," said Jack. "I heard that he's been sending messages here, but you'll have to ask the docs about that."

Inali's hopes rose. "What happened? How did I get here?"

Jack stepped closer, and leaned in. She began to speak in a whisper. "You really don't remember?"

Inali shook her head. "Bits and pieces," she said. "But a lot of it seems like I dreamed it. I don't know how much of it's real."

"Probably better that you don't remember much," Jack began. "All right. Back on the desert planet, Cerberus made you fight Ezno."

Inali's skin crawled, and she rubbed her eyes. "Right, yeah. I know, I remember that much, and I wish I could forget it. It was like some dream, and I was trapped. Some of the time, I didn't care what I saw, what Cerberus was making me do. But other times, I felt like I was banging and punching on a window while I watched all of this happen in front of me. I couldn't break through, I couldn't stop any of it. Ran must've held back while he was fighting me. I mean, I'm still here and I'm still breathing."

Jack nodded. "Ezno used his biotics on you. He gambled, and it paid off. His biotics saturated your implants and it broke Cerberus' control over you. You were dying, though. If we'd gotten there just a little later, I don't think you would've made it. God knows how, but the docs on the _Normandy_ kept you alive. Your guy Ezno told Shepard and the Alliance everything about Cerberus that he knew. He wanted to stay with you, but the Alliance wouldn't let him. Shepard thought that he deserved a freaking medal for shooting up that Cerberus station, stealing that intel, and getting you out. But others thought he should've gone to a prison colony for all the asari, turians and krogans who are dead because of him."

"Ran was just doing his damn job," said Inali. "So was I. So was his team, they were my guys. We were all just doing our damn jobs. None of us knew about the sick shit that Cerberus was doing."

"I know," said Jack. "And Foxy, you have no idea how fucking long it took for someone like me to buy that. But I believe it now." She paused, and then continued, "Shepard told me that the Alliance drafted Ezno into the Marines as a low-level private. No infiltrator stuff. They shipped him way out to the middle of nowhere. Something about guarding a refugee camp on some backwater planet. It's been a while, but that's the last thing I heard."

This was doing nothing to help Inali's heart rate. "He's a private in the Marines? That's what the Alliance did with him? What if Cerberus comes looking for him? So you're just telling me that the Alliance is hanging him out to dry?"

"I know, I know. I knew that'd piss you off. Shepard was beside himself when the orders came in. But look, it's not prison, but it's not like the Alliance trusts Ezno either. I wouldn't worry about Cerberus though. The Illusive Man's got bigger things to worry about sending a bunch of thugs way out to God-knows-where looking for one guy who's become a needle in a haystack. Especially when that one guy has skills like your guy Ezno."

"You keep calling me Foxy. Stop calling me that name, all right? What about…," Inali was about to ask Jack another question when someone walked into the room. It was the asari doctor from the day before.

"Good morning, Miss Renata. We saw from your vitals that you were awake. I'm Doctor Kiri T'navo. I'm glad to see you're up. I'm sorry about that fright we gave you yesterday, we didn't mean for that to happen. After what you've been through, we had a feeling that you might be…defensive…when you woke up. The restraints were for your protection."

"Please, just take them off. I hate these things. You don't know what I've been through," she pleaded. "Can I see the messages that Randall Ezno sent me? Can I contact him?"

"Well, Miss Renata…may I call you Inali?"

"Fine, call me Inali. Please, just let me rub my wrists, already?"

"We'll talk about all of those things, but first things first. I'll take off the restraints, but a few ground rules first. It's important that you keep that IV in your wrist. It's medicine, I'll explain in a minute. And no walking, not just yet. We're going to take this one small step at a time, but hopefully we'll get there."

"Thank you," said Inali. "Just take them off. I promise I won't do any backflips or go dancing."

Jack chuckled. "Sarcasm. Good sign."

Dr. T'navo nodded and said, "Please lie still," and began to undo Inali's restraints. "We've been treating you for a long time, and I can only imagine what you've been through."

Dr. T'navo and Jack sat foot of Inali's hospital bed, with Jack on Inali's left, and the doctor on her right. Inali rubbed her wrists, which felt raw and sensitive, and then her ankles. "Okay, doctor," she said, steeling herself, "How long have I been out, and what did Cerberus do to me?"

"It's really a miracle that you're still with us," the doctor began.

"So it's that bad," said Inali. "All right, how long have I been out? What did Cerberus do to me?" she asked again.

After a moment's pause, the doctor continued. "It's been months since the Alliance brought you in. As for what Cerberus did…we were all staggered by it. They turned you into a remote-controlled combat drone. They injected you with a smart gel, installed biotic implants, and put hardware directly into your brain and central nervous system. All of them ran off the electricity that's naturally generated by your body. As a backup, you were also wearing an external power source that was hard wired with cables directly into your head. You had a tactical cloak, an eezo generator for movement, and combat armor. But all of those were external."

The word 'months' by itself had shocked Inali. Now she felt nauseous. "Doctor, before you say more, I'm almost afraid to ask…the stuff that you said Cerberus injected me with. What's a smart gel?"

"That…is hard to explain. It's some type of cutting-edge nanotech. No one at the Alliance had ever seen before. It wasn't alive, but it moved when you received signals. Once it was injected into your system, it spread all through your body. Cerberus sent signals to your implants, and then your implants would make the gel respond, make you do things. Those implants and that gel were how Cerberus controlled you. The gel bleached your skin white as a side effect."

"So basically, I've been possessed by some sort of liquid that was pulling my strings like a puppet." Inali held up her left arm and nodded toward the IV. "Please, doctor, tell me that the tingling sensation that's all over me, that the funky blue stuff in this IV…"

"The medicine in that IV is eradicating the liquid even now, yes. Apparently the people who brought you in, also had a lot of stolen Cerberus intel with them. Some of it was related to you. We were able to use it as a road map towards treating you. Beyond that, we had to invent new science as we went along. The first few medicines didn't work, and there were bad side effects."

"So I had 'side effects,' " said Inali. "Is that like when an engineer tells you that an explosion was a 'malfunction' ? How much of this stuff is still inside of me?"

Dr. T'navo ignored the first question and replied, "By now, except for what's left of the gel, what Cerberus did is almost all gone. The gel is inert now. Those splotches of white on your skin, eventually, should go away. For hardware and parts that we couldn't remove, we used clean samples of your DNA and cloned those contaminated organs. We replaced some of them whole. Others, we had to find a way to replace the bad cells one at a time, and dissolve the rest. You had a lot of setbacks. During one operation, you flatlined for a few seconds. But, you're here now, and that's what's important. Your throat's probably still a little sore from being on a respirator, but that'll pass. For now you'll need to build your strength back up, and we'll need your help with retraining your nervous system."

Inali's next thought was, _I have splotches of white left on my skin? What the hell do I look like?_ But instead, she asked, "My help? What do you mean, 'my help'?"

"Your muscles have atrophied, and nervous system has been through the ringer. You probably noticed that your memory is spotty, and your coordination is off. Yesterday, when we gave you that cup of water, that was a test. We're going to start retraining you from the ground up. Even basic things, like feeding yourself, handling small objects, writing, learning to walk again, all of that. We're hopeful that things will start to come back on their own, that your body will remember how to do some things, even if you don't remember it consciously. Don't be alarmed if anyone refers to you as 'Jane' or 'Miss Doe.' The Alliance is still worried about your safety, and so your identity is still classified."

It was a lot to absorb, and Inali looked doubtfully at her hands and arms. There were speckled patches of white all over them, as though someone had carelessly waved a wet paint brush over her. "All right, doctor. Whatever you need me to do, you've got it. I hope these spots on my skin will be gone soon and I won't have to see them ever again. One more thing, those messages from Randall Ezno. When can I see them? And contact him?"

"We'll let you see the messages right away. As for contacting him, I can't see why not."

"Just tell him I'm finally awake. Tell him I miss him and I love him."

"I think we could probably arrange that. Keep in mind that all messages are routed through Alliance security, and you're still a Jane Doe, remember. But your emotional state is important to us, and we can see how much this person means to you. These things are all part of the healing process. And of course, you've been assigned a PTSD counselor too."

Jack smiled and pointed to herself. "It's your lucky day, missy."

Inali recoiled and gestured at Jack. "What? You mean to tell me that Buzz Cut here is a PTSD counselor?"

Jack burst out laughing. "Oh, Foxy, you have no idea. This is going to be great."

Inali angrily hissed, "Buzz, if you keep calling me that, I'm going to clock you."

Dr. T'navo held up her hands in surrender. "No, Inali. Jack isn't a counselor. But you're a very special patient, and we know that you and Jack share some common ground when it comes to being a survivor of Cerberus. Someone at the Alliance pulled a lot of strings to allow her to see you. I have to admit, I was against it at first."

"I was too damn charming for the doc here," said Jack, nodding toward Dr. T'navo. "And too much of a flirt with the young interns. Right, Kiri?"

The doctor sighed. "But, we decided to keep an open mind about how she might help your healing process."

Jack leaned toward Inali, but whispered loud enough for Dr. T'navo to hear: "I'll sneak in some booze, we'll have a great time."

…

Inali read her first letter from Randall Ezno. It was one of the few that was handwritten, from the day that she and Randall were first picked up by the _Normandy_ from desert planet LV426 _._ "Dammit, Ran," she whispered to herself. "Why did you ask me to forgive you? Stop blaming yourself." It was surreal, looking at his handwriting from months ago. She imagined him sitting alone in a holding cell, writing it, and then putting it away. She wondered what was going through his mind while she was clinging to life in a nearby medical bay.

Inali folded the letter and squeezed it. She squinted her eyes, trying to keep the tears back. She took a breath and said, "Love you too, Ran." Then she moved on to the next letter.

…

 _Physical therapy is a real pain in the ass,_ thought Inali. Her right leg shook with tremors as she slid her heel backward. A sharp pins-and-needles feeling throbbed its way through her, and it felt was like daggers. She slid her leg back until her calf touched the back of her thigh. Then she slid it forward, until it was fully straight. She began to repeat the movement, with her left leg. Again, the tremors. And again, the dagger-like pain.

"You've got this, Foxy," said Jack. "No problem. You're doing great."

A bead of sweat went down Inali's temple. She bared her teeth as her muscles protested against every inch of movement. She wondered if someone had replaced the muscles under her skin with razor blades. Her nerves were waking back up, but this was going to be one hell of a rough ride. "I don't know what's worse," she said. "How my arms and legs feel, or that damn nickname."

"Oh, you like that nickname, stop lying. And I'm good at coming up with nicknames, so I don't think you want to go there. You've got this, just keep on. The nurses told you to do fifteen reps each leg, you've done eight so far. You've got seven more in you. No rush. Then we can go dancing."

Inali chuckled and then flinched. "Oh, shit. Ow. My gut hurts when I laugh. Thanks a heap. Okay, seven reps." She groaned as another ache went through her. "So how much did Ran tell you about me? Or was my name the only thing that he told you about?"

Jack rested a hand on the hospital bed's rail. "About the meaning of your name, I just looked that up. Ezno wasn't on the _Normandy_ long enough to tell me anything about you. I didn't talk to him much. Like I said, I…I have a really bad history with Cerberus. I was, well…I was a bitch toward your guy Randall, actually." At that moment, Inali glanced at Jack, whose expression didn't change much at first. Jack shifted uncomfortably for a moment, looked down, and then her eyes returned to Inali. "Sorry. Like the doc said, I'm a Cerberus 'survivor.' What I've been through was awful. But look, I know that your friend didn't deserve the shit I gave him."

Inali paused, then said, "Freaking Cerberus. It sounds like we've got a lot to talk about."

"Over tequila shots," responded Jack.

Inali smiled and nodded. "Now you're talking." She looked at her legs again, and tried to concentrate. Rep number nine. It was easier when she had a place to focus. "Well, I guess we both have a hell of a bad history when it comes to Cerberus. All right. Well anyway, about Ran, I always used that name for him. I like nicknames, instead of full names. He makes everyone call him Randall, but I wouldn't go for that. And he told me that his dad calls him Randy. He really started to hate that by the time he was a teenager."

Jack snickered.

Inali continued, "As for my name…my mom was always a fan of wildlife. She loved it, loved being outside. Well, there were foxes in the woods near our home. Red, brown and black foxes. So when I was born, my hair was dark, almost black. That was it, that's how they named me Inali, their little black fox. Years later, when I was old enough to remember, my parents told me how much the name fit. I was always exploring outside, always getting into things. It wasn't until later that my hair turned lighter until it was auburn, like it is now." Then she frowned, and looked up towards her scalp. "Or, it's how my hair used to be, until Cerberus did that stuff to me. Did any of it grow back?"

"It did. The orderlies trim it short, like they do for the other patients that are…"

"Bedridden? Stuck in their hospital beds full time?"

Jack nodded. "Something like that, yeah."

Rep number eleven. Inali paused, catching her breath before she continued. She looked at Jack, again struck by the intensity of her eyes, even in a casual moment like this. _I wonder what she's seen_ , she wondered. _And how much she wishes she could forget._ "That bastard Director laughed while his goons held me down and shaved my hair off, just before they operated on me. One of the Cerberus tech guys started to cry, and he told me he was sorry. He must've known what they were about to do to me. When the Director ordered him to scrub up, he wouldn't do it. So the Director ordered the guards to shoot him."

"This Director sounds like a fucking prince," said Jack sullenly.

"Seriously," said Inali. "Did the Alliance get him?"

"I don't know. I doubt it. The Alliance and the Turians captured that space station you were on, though. What was left of it."

"Holy shit, are you serious?" Rep number twelve.

"Oh, hell yeah. Long story short, your guy Ezno and a turian called the cavalry and blasted a call for help into the clear. About a day and a half later, Alliance and Turian ships took the station. That Director's probably hiding in a deep dark hole somewhere. He's probably hiding from the Illusive Man too, he probably wants him shot because he fucked up so bad."

"A turian helped Randall? I wonder if that was…no, nevermind," Inali shook her head and focused back on her exercises. She steeled herself again. Rep number twelve was a bear, and her blood boiled at the thought of the Director getting away. "I swear, it just pisses me off that the Director's out there. He deserves to be fed to the krogans. And if anybody would be crazy enough to go on a revenge kick looking for Ran, or me, it'd be him." She paused, and then realized that there was another question that she had to ask. "You said that Ran and a turian called for help. Did he say anything about the rest of his team? There were six guys on his team, including him."

Rep number thirteen. Jack sighed, then replied, "They're missing. Randall talked about them, he said that his team tried to help him escape. So the Director turned on all of them. He said that all of a sudden they froze, and a couple of them went beserk. He thought that the Director might've made his team's biotic implants go haywire. A couple of his own team even shot him, but Randall couldn't bring himself to kill them. So he ran."

As Jack's words sank in, the color drained out of Inali's face. She asked, "But…maybe they could get away. Or when the Alliance took the station, maybe they were still alive."

Jack put a hand on Inali's shoulder. "You never know. From what we heard, it was still crazy on that station by the time it fell. Cerberus troops and former prisoners were still shooting it out, people were missing, shuttles too. You never know."

Inali lowered her arm across her knees, and then rested her head. "They were my guys," she said. "Ran, and his friend Jordan Jensen, they were the co-leaders of the team. But they were all my guys. I was their handler. We were training these young rookies. I took care of the team during missions, and sometimes I'd go into the field with them. I don't think any of the other handlers ever had to shoot at bad guys during a mission. But I've done it." She steeled herself, and moved her legs again. Rep fourteen. She said again, "They were my guys."

Jack didn't say anything for a moment. Then she swallowed, and said, "Sorry."

Inali kept trying to force her legs to do rep number fifteen. But her legs shook under the strain. She stopped again, and it felt like there was a grim, heavy stone on top of her, weighing her down. "Shit," she said. "If only I had more time, I could've helped them all. Not just Ran. I should've moved sooner. At the first sign of trouble, I could've done something. Hell, I should've seen what Cerberus was doing. I did see it. But I just didn't believe it. Not in time." She looked at her arm, and impatiently began to rub it, as though the remaining white patches would disappear. She ran her left hand through her hair, looking gloomily ahead. "I could've saved them. All of them."

Jack looked sadly at Inali, and said, "Fox…I don't know what to…" Finally, she sat alongside Inali and wrapped her arms around her, supporting her in her grief. She took one of Inali's hands and said, "I'm sorry…I'm right here, you're not alone. We're not alone...Cerberus won't hurt us again. I won't let them hurt you again."

"Damn right they won't," whispered Inali, returning Jack's hug. "Thanks Jack. I'm glad you're here."


	7. The Face of the Enemy, Part 2

**The Face of the Enemy, Part 2**

 **Or**

" **They're Not Dead, They're Cut Off"**

 _One-shot story inspired by the Mass Effect spinoff game, Mass Effect: Infiltrator. Randall Ezno's unit fights on the front lines against the Reapers. Randall finds himself asked to be an infiltrator again, helping an Alliance unit that's cut off and surrounded by Reaper troops._

 _..._

 _Randall Ezno_

Booming cracks of gunfire filled the night on the Batarian planet of Camala. Burning buildings and wrecked Alliance combat vehicles raged fires into torrents of rain as they belched smoke that hung in the air like sooty fog.

"Fall back! Fall back!" shouted Commander Marcus Hooton as his soldiers took cover in a group of blown-out dwellings. The Alliance forces had doggedly held their ground against the relentless Reaper attacks for the last nine hours. "I need four guys on these windows. Shoot anything that moves." He raised his hand to his ear as a transmission came in, and turned to his subordinate. "Take over here for a second. I just got a flash transmission from Command."

Private Randall Ezno rushed past Marcus to the nearest window, glancing over his shoulder as he elbowed away some broken glass. Rain bucketed down through holes in the ceiling and sounded like a steady rumble on his combat armor. He spotted husks in the distance and fired. Over the skyline, brief lightning flashes revealed the pitch-dark silhouette of a Reaper destroyer against the stormy night sky before it vanished into the dark. A crimson Reaper beam appeared for a few seconds, followed by the sound of distant explosions. Randall flexed his jaw as the Reaper added to its body count, crinkling his nose as a heavy rotten egg smell drifted around him. He hoped that the fires weren't burning something poisonous, but they had bigger problems right now. He heard Marcus' voice a moment later.

"Cherise, take position at Ezno's window. Ezno, get over here."

Randall felt a slap on his shoulder from newly promoted Sergeant Cherise Taylor. Cherise was the first Alliance solider who had befriended him after he defected from Cerberus. He nodded toward the window. "Hooah. Stay sharp Cherise, I saw a few husks about a hundred yards out. I don't think they see us yet."

Marcus pulled Randall aside to a nearby room and kicked aside a table and a chair. A lone chair stood in a corner, waiting silently for visitors who would never come again. "All right Ezno, listen up. Command says the Reapers broke our lines badly to the south of here. Most of Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie companies were wiped out. Delta Company rescued some of them and fell back to Hill 751, but the Reapers have them surrounded. And here's what that means."

The commander activated his holo display, which showed a tactical map of the area. Randall looked at the map and sensed the danger. "Holy shit. From looking at this, if that hill falls it'll open up a flood gate. There'll be nothing to stop the Reapers from - "

"So you can read a map. Smart man." Marcus turned the display off. "The guys at Command can read a map too, and that's why they pay them the big bucks. Some of the Reaper troops have already pushed onward, and they'll threaten the evac sites before long. There are thousands of civilians and wounded Alliance troops down there. But Command's pulling together a counterattack, and those guys stuck on Hill 751 are helping more than they know. They're tying down a lot of Reaper ground forces that are trying to finish them off. That's buying us more time."

"Where do I fit in?"

"Command needs Delta Company to hold that hill. They're going to drop in weapons and supplies, but they need more help. You were an infiltrator with Cerberus, right? Biotic abilities?"

Randall nodded. "Infiltrators are all about the mayhem."

"You can hack a network?"

"I don't know how much good that'll do here, but sure."

"Sniper skills?"

"I can hollow out a coin at a thousand yards. For laughs."

"Out-fucking-standing," Marcus toggled his com. "Command? This is Commander Marcus Hooton. Get a shuttle up here now. I'll send coordinates. I still need all of my boots on the ground here, but I can spare a force multiplier to help the situation on Hill 751. I need full tactical gear for an infiltrator, all right? I'm talking a full weapons pack, sniper rifle, a special tactical cloak with a long-duration power pack, grenades, all of it." He muted his com and looked at Randall. "I'll hook you up with a handler at the forward operating base who's viewing the recon satellite's feed. You'll be able to communicate with Delta Company too. Use the open area near Hill 751 as your killing ground, and do what infiltrators do best. Run-and-gun, pick off the high-value targets that your handler and Delta Company send you, and make it easier for them to fight off the dumb husks trying to storm that hill. Marauders, brutes, you name it. Don't engage any banshees alone though. Nobody's that good."

A moment passed. The commander put his hand on his earpiece as another message came in. "What? Oh, hello, Admiral. Well, I guess I'm getting the royal treatment. Yes, Admiral, I told one of your subordinates that I need tactical gear for an infiltrator. Yes, I know all of the infiltrators in this sector are doing special ops right now. I'm not pulling any of those guys out. I'm sending one of my troops, an infantry foot soldier. He -"

Marcus stopped speaking as the Admiral interrupted him. He looked at Randall, and then rolled his eyes and tossed one of his hands into the air. "Admiral, I'm not giving your infiltrator gear to just 'some guy.' Cerberus trained him as an infiltrator. This soldier…yes, Cerberus. I said 'Cerberus.' "

Randall imagined the exchange and shook his head in annoyance. They were fighting the Reaper onslaught, it was raining, and now they had to deal with this crap?

"Of course I trust him, Admiral. He's been serving alongside my troops at the Amasis refugee camps. No problems at all. He might be former Cerberus, but he's a model soldier, he does everything by the book."

Several of the soldiers within earshot chuckled. Especially Cherise. "Hey Randall, make sure that he tells the Admiral about that Batman prowling you did at the refugee camp."

Randall leaned around the corner. "You weren't supposed to know about that, Cherise."

"You can't keep a secret for shit, Randall."

Randall saw Marcus kick a rain puddle as he paced the room and listened to the Admiral. The commander stopped walking and made a fist, tapping the wall with his knuckles. "No, Admiral, my soldier hasn't done any infiltrator ops with the Alliance. He hasn't…Admiral, if you'd just – " Marcus bared his teeth and punched the wall. "Admiral, would you stop pissing yourself for one minute? Your flash transmission asked for help, and I am sending it. If Hill 751 falls, it's only a matter of time before the Reapers are crawling all over the refugee evac sites. Listen to me. Do not write Delta Company off, dammit. They are NOT dead, they're cut off. If you've heard better ideas from other groups, great, use them. Otherwise will you please send us a shuttle before Delta gets wiped out too? I will send this guy on foot if I have to. But if they can hold that hill, we can push the Reapers back. If they can't, we're in a world of trouble."

Randall's eyebrows went up. _Holy shit. Time to be an infiltrator again._

 _..._

 _Hill 751_

Commander James Koch with Delta Company checked the time as heavy drops of rain washed over everyone. Soldiers rested aching muscles, tended to wounds and recharged their weapons during a lull in the husks' attacks. Every soldier's body armor was charred by electric shock blasts from husks. He held his hand up to his earpiece, listening to a message from Command as a field medic applied medigel to a shoulder wound. "All right, just get those supplies out here. We'll keep you posted if things change. Over and out." Koch stepped away from the medic, and walked along the defensive perimeter where his troops sheltered behind trees and forest boulders. Wet branches snapped under his feet. "All right. They're sending us weapons, supplies, and an infiltrator to sweep the field around this hill and pick off their CO's. But for now, we are stuck here. You will hold what you've got, understand? Hold your ground no matter what."

Commander Koch's second-in-command Elias Ohayon spoke up. "All right, you heard the man. We've got good cover here. If those Reapers want a piece of us, we're going to drive them back with their asses in a sling." His body armor had seen better days, but he didn't look too bad, considering.

The medic looked at Elias' armor. "Sir, you've been hit."

Elias waved the medic away. "No thanks. We've all been hit. It's just a graze, keep the medigel ready for the guys who need it."

"Elias," said Koch. "Over here." When they were out of earshot from the defensive line, he spoke in a low voice. "All right. You heard the deal. For now, we hold this hill."

"Well, at least our cover is really good. The brush up here will stop the husks from swarming us, and the Reapers can't use other weapons until they're close. We've looked at the terrain, we've got spotters on every approach. We've killed so many husks that their fallen bodies are piling up and getting in the way of new attackers. Plus, the husks have those crazy lit-up implants. Easy to see in the dark. We can hold on for hours if we need to."

"Elias, it's bad out there." Koch's expression didn't betray any concern. But, his voice did. "The Reapers pushed the Alliance's lines back until they broke across a wide area. Some guys at Command wrote us off, but now we're the ones buying Command time to regroup. We have to hold until the Alliance counterattack gets here. If we're lucky, help could be here by sunrise. If not, it could be days."

The color drained from Elias' face. "Shit."

"Couldn't have said it better. Tell our spotters about that infiltrator, let's get him a good long list of targets when he gets here. His help could go a long way. Stay strong."

Gunfire erupted from a hundred yards away. The surviving members of Bravo Company were holding that side of the line. Koch and Elias crouched as tree branches shattered, splintered and sprayed fragments all around them. Koch toggled his com. "Bravo Company, what's your status? Bravo Company, report. Bravo Company –"

Elias never heard Koch finish the sentence. A flash burst in the middle of Koch's chest and he fell backward to the ground. Elias stared in horror as smoke rose from a twisted hole in Koch's body armor, and it all happened in less than a second. "Medic! Koch's been hit! Get a medic up here now! I want ten more guys at Bravo Company's side of the line now - tell them to hold their ground and return fire!"

A medic rushed over to Koch. After a few seconds, the medic turned his face to Elias and shook his head. Elias felt like a ball of ice had materialized in his stomach as he took charge of holding the hill and keeping them alive.

 _..._

 _Randall Ezno_

The shuttle carrying Randall to Hill 751 shook as the Reaper troops fired at it from below. Fortunately, the pilot flew too low and fast for them to hit. "Okay, soldier. Two minutes to the drop."

"Roger that, pilot, two minutes. Too bad this Kodiak doesn't have a window."

"Buddy, it's night, it's raining and we're thirty feet off the deck."

That, Randall realized, was way closer to the ground than he thought. "Sorry I asked. Thanks again for the ride." Randall toggled his com and contacted his handler. "This is Randall Ezno. I'm almost at Hill 751. Handler, are you online?"

He heard the handler's feminine voice in his headset. Her voice had a vibratory quality, which reminded him of the drell refugees that he'd met at the Amasis refugee camp. "Private Ezno, this is Lieutenant Idrata Heet at the forward operating base _._ I'll call you EZ for short. I've got you loud and clear, I've already ID'd a few ground targets from the recon satellite's feed. I'm downloading the targets to your helmet's heads-up display now. You'll see red dots highlighting the high value targets leading the husks. We've detected mostly marauders so far. You'll also be able to contact those troops on the hill. They're led by Commander James Koch."

"Sounds good. I'll be on the ground in a few." _'Idrata Heet,'_ thought Randall. _Sounds like a drell name. Fine by me, as long as she's good._ Randall checked his gear one more time. _Okay…checking eezo air brake to keep me from going splat like a bug after I bail out. Looks good. Assault rifle, check. Sniper rifle_ , _check. Tactical cloak and kinetic shield at full power, check. And let's check that eezo air brake again._

"Thirty seconds to drop."

Randall thought of the troops fighting for their lives on the hill. He activated his cloak as a nearby air blast rocked the shuttle.

The pilot struggled to keep the shuttle on a steady path. "Shit. Come on, just a little closer. Opening exit hatch." The heavy torrent of rain and screeching sound of rushing air filled the shuttle as the side hatch opened. "You're out, buddy!"

The flashes from Reaper guns and shock blasts were a blur as Randall leaped and was thrown about like a piece of paper in a tornado. His eezo air brake engaged and the world rose up to meet him, throwing splashes of mud five feet in the air as he hit the ground running and threw a biotic salvo that killed three nearby husks. The sudden flash of blue biotic energy in the dead of night in the middle of an empty field drew a swarm of husks rushing to the spot, but they found only empty space. Randall's tactical cloak kept him invisible, and he was far away by the time they arrived. He took cover in a gully and scanned the area, narrowing his eyes at the forbidding sight.

 _The husks are all over the place. Holy jeez._ Dozens of small red dots lit up his display, each of them identifying a target. The field was full of them. "Got the targets, Idrata. Looks like we're in for a busy night. I'm moving out and going to work."

"Nice landing EZ," she replied. "Good hunting."

The display in Randall's helmet showed a pair of marauders at sixty yards. He pulled the pin off a high explosive grenade and threw it, using his biotics to steer the grenade in flight. The grenade landed directly between the marauders, exploded, and sent them flying in opposite directions. Once again the husks swarmed in, but found no enemy to fight.

 _I'll bet that stung. I'll do my share of damage out here, but I'm still just one guy. I can't hold this sector by myself. Those guys on Hill 751, they're the ones making the difference._

He toggled his com. "This is Private Randall Ezno, 73rd infantry, calling Commander Koch with Delta Company on Hill 751. I'm sweeping the field near your hill. Delta, do you read?"

He heard a voice over the sound of gunfire in his headset. "This is Lieutenant Commander Elias Ohayon. I'm in command and I'll put you in contact with our spotters. Thanks for the assist, Ezno. We sure need the help. Elias out."

"Roger that," said Randall. _So Commander Koch isn't in command anymore. Which means that he's probably wounded or dead. Shit._

 _..._

 _Hill 751_

Elias wiped his brow as another Alliance shuttle flew over the hill. The constant bursts of gunfire were like white noise now. The shuttle dropped a pair of large objects that flashed infrared strobes as they drifted down near the summit of the hill. Elias turned to the unit's new second-in-command and shouted to make himself heard. "Send four guys to recover those crates. It should have fresh weapons. Let's hope they sent us some medigel, water and rations too." He toggled his com. "Command, this is Hill 751. Your infiltrator's sweeping the area and we got your last shipment. We'll let you know how things go from here. Out."

...

 _Randall Ezno_

Over the next hour, Randall made a full sweep of the field area around Hill 751. He couldn't stop every marauder, every cannibal, every brute from reaching the hill. And God knew, the Reapers would never run out of husks. But he had to make the Reapers' job tougher. By taking out the better Reaper troops, and leaving mostly mindless husks to storm the hill, the Reapers would pay dearly.

Randall took refuge in a few bushes and aimed at a distant marauder with his sniper rifle. The marauder gestured and seemed to be directing more husks toward the hill. Its Reaper implants glowed in stark contrast to the darkness.

Randall pulled the trigger. The sniper round struck the marauder full in the chest, buckling its legs as it fell to the ground in a heap. More husks flooded the area where the marauder was shot, and to the area where Randall fired. But again, they were looking for an enemy that they couldn't find.

 _Thank God for this cloak. But I've got to make good use of the cover when I can find it._

Another hour passed. Randall swept more high value targets from the area around Hill 751.

...

 _Hill 751_

Elias sprayed an area with gunfire as Hill 751's northern flank repelled more swarming husks. About twenty yards away, the treeline wavered and shook. Several trees broke in half, falling to the ground in a crash of leaves and branches. Elias sensed the danger immediately. As if on cue, lightning flashed with a deluge of rain.

"Everybody fire full auto on the treeline! They've got brutes coming behind them!"

Gunfire drowned out the storm's thunder as three massive armored beasts charged ahead from behind the husks. Elias had faced brutes before and still could not believe the sight of them. A monster created by physically attaching armor plating, machinery, and a turian's head to a krogan body was one of the most demented things anyone could imagine. Anyone, that is, except the Reapers. They thought that combining turian military skill and krogan blood rage was a pretty good idea.

One of them made a guttural rumbling roar and forced its way past a pair of trees before being overwhelmed with rifle fire. The second seemed berserk, swinging its enormous armored claw arm left and right seemingly at random. It destroyed husks and trees alike before it fell. The third positioned itself behind a husk mob, protected itself with its armored claw arm, and charged behind the husks.

"Get out of its way! Everybody fall back!"

For some of the soldiers, the order came too late. The gunfire was no use against the brute's armor, and soldiers stunned by husk shock blasts were all killed when the third brute smashed through the line. It crushed the soldiers to the ground as though they were dolls. Elias and the remaining soldiers concentrated most of their fire on the brute until it staggered, swung its claw arm yet again, and finally died. As the last of the husks were killed, Elias walked over to the soldiers whose bodies lay alongside the brute. He toggled his com.

"Send five soldiers to the northern flank. We need help clearing debris and bodies, and I want to rotate some of these guys off the line. Make sure the medics take a look at the people I'm sending, and get them some water and rest. Elias out."

He knew the Alliance troops were tough, but no one could fight without rest. Except the Reapers. They would never stop.

...

 _Randall Ezno_

Randall took refuge near some bushes and sighted his next target. A marauder directed a group of husks, a couple of cannibals, and a brute. Randall biotically lifted the marauder into the air, its legs kicking wildly before he slammed it down to the ground. Looking to his left, he saw a dead marauder and three dead husks near it.

"I guess I've been here before," he said to no one in particular.

Using his omni tool, he looked at a map and checked his bearings. How many Reaper targets had he killed so far? It wasn't like kill counts mattered, though. He knew that. The Reapers sure as hell weren't going to run out of troops. The number of red dots in Randall's heads-up display hadn't decreased, and if anything, it was increasing. He found some new cover and rested, needing some serious time to catch his breath. The local time had to be a few hours after midnight. The day on Camala lasted only 18 hours, so he knew that the sun would be coming up soon. He could feel sweat dripping off his forehead as Idrata's voice came over his com line.

"How are you holding up, EZ?"

Between heavy breaths, he said, "Son of a bitch. No rest for the weary, Idrata. I've been fighting all day, and since I got here it's been stop-and-go, run-and-gun. I'm going to use my cloak and take a minute to drink some water. It's getting hot inside this stinking helmet." Taking stock of his surroundings, his eyes narrowed. "I can't believe it. I've started coming across more and more dead bodies of Reaper troops that I've killed. I mean, jeezus. We've been fighting around the clock. It's like we're all waist deep in these bastards, and they keep coming."

"I hear you. Good call on the rest. Do what you can to get a breather and stay alert. If you get too tired, you might make a mistake. You're in a bad place to do that."

"You're not kidding." Randall rubbed his sore legs. He'd been moving so long, his muscles were starting to feel like jelly. He glanced toward the hill, always hearing the sound of Alliance gunfire, and always seeing momentary flashes of light dotting the hill. "How's Delta holding up?"

"Pretty much the same as you. Exhausted, banged up, and still pinned down. But each time the husks attack, they drive them back. It's like the Reapers are throwing eggs at a brick wall. But listen up, the Alliance has started trying to push the Reapers back in your sector. Command's worried that the Reapers will make one more try to knock Delta and the rest of our troops off that hill. That might be why you're seeing the Reapers ramping it up. Hang in there."

Randall engaged his cloak, removed his helmet, and drank some water from his field pack. The rain fell steadily and refreshed him as it landed on his face and neck. In the dark, he saw the glowing lit-up forms of Reaper troops all around him.

 _That one's a cannibal. That one, maybe it's another marauder. Jeez, another one? And husks. Always more of those._

From the southern horizon, a scintillating crimson beam pierced its way up into the night sky and shook him from his thoughts. _What in the hell?_ _That Reaper destroyer must've been aiming at an aircraft, but we don't have anything in the sky over there. Not unless…oh, hell no. No. No, God damn it –_

He toggled his com. "Idrata! Idrata, what's the status on that recon satellite?"

Through his headset Randall heard a noisy commotion, someone's voice shouting an obscenity, and then Idrata's response. "Randall, we lost the feed. It's all gone, the telemetry's dark. We don't know how, but that Reaper destroyer must have detected our recon satellite and shot it down. We can't help you anymore. Delta's spotters might still have targets for you though. Try to help them hold on for just another couple of hours. Good luck."

"Roger that, Idrata. At least the freaking rain's lightened up. Ezno out." He signed off. "Shit!" He toggled his com again, this time contacting the spotters on Hill 751. "Delta Company, this is Ezno. The recon satellite's knocked out. Command says the cavalry's on the way, but the Reapers are going to make one more try to knock you guys out. Keep sending me those targets."

A soldier replied after several seconds of static. "Copy that, Ezno. Will do. Be on the lookout for a brute about 200 yards east-southeast of you. If we get too busy up here, you'll have to improvise on your own. Delta out."

Randall switched off his com, punched the muddy ground and moved out. "All right, Reapers. You're going to fight now. The Alliance cavalry's coming, and you just pissed me the hell off. If I don't get any rest, neither do you."

...

 _Hill 751_

The rain at Hill 751 faded to a light drizzle as the Reapers started their last major push to take the hill. Not that any of the Alliance troops noticed the rain anymore.

"Where the hell did all these things come from?" Elias had no sooner killed a husk than he found himself face-to-face with the gaping mouth of a cannibal. He leaped straight backward as its jaws bit only empty air, then it bit off chunks of the husk body in front of him. The soldier alongside Elias shot the cannibal in the midsection and it fell to the ground with a thud. They fired their rifles again as a swarm of husks and cannibals rushed the firing line. Three husks set off electric shock blasts that killed all the soldiers near them. Soldiers rushed into the space and shot the last husks dead as Elias turned to his second in command. "Tell that infiltrator it's getting hairy up here. Pull ten guys off our West flank and support the guys at our rear. The Reapers are putting a lot of heat on them. And if that Alliance relief force ever gets close to here, tell that infiltrator and our spotters to direct artillery strikes on the Reapers and use Danger Close fire missions if you have to."

Loud deep throated roars made half of the firing line look behind them. From the opposite side of the hill, dozens of troops switched their rifles to full automatic and fired continuously. Elias squinted against the random shouts flooding his earpiece. He toggled his com again. "Make that twenty guys. Send twenty guys to our rear."

Elias checked the status indicator on his rifle as it flashed an overheat warning. _Dammit._ He switched to his pistol, aimed and shot two husks as they clumsily scrambled over the dead bodies of other husks. He didn't notice that the stars overhead disappeared as they gave way to a blue sky. The top of the treeline would soon be awash in sunrise.

 _There's too damn many. The relief force has to get here soon. It has to get here, for God's sake._

Elias sometimes saw more husks, cannibals and marauders than Alliance soldiers. Defensive lines wavered, broke, then formed right back as soldiers rushed in to fill the gaps, some of them kicking husks in the chest, stabbing them with omni blades, or crushing their heads with rifles swung like clubs. Weapons fire from Alliance troops, Reaper marauders and cannibals, and electric shock blasts from husks blew entire trees into saplings. The Alliance soldiers' kinetic shields crackled constantly against flying wooden splinters.

...

 _Randall Ezno_

Randall unleashed a salvo of biotic missiles and a storm bubble as he finished off a brute, which writhed and lurched toward him before it died. He crouched low, thankful for his cloak, as a group of oblivious husks swarmed by him. He already knew what his next target was. He turned toward another brute, this one about two hundred yards away. He flinched as he heard a high-pitched whistling sound above him and then the brute exploded, lifting into the air before its remains collapsed in a heap. The red dot over the brute in Randall's heads-up display flickered and disappeared. Another whistling sound to his left coincided with an explosion.

Randall toggled his com. "Delta Company, I've started seeing some explosions out here in the field. Big ones. What's going on?"

Through heavy static he heard the voice of a spotter from Delta Company. It was a young-sounding woman this time. "Ezno, this is Delta. We've got intermittent contact with the Alliance relief force and we're spotting for them. They're firing in long-range artillery ahead of their troops. Repeat, the Alliance counterattack is on its way. You're seeing Alliance artillery fire."

"Freaking excellent. I hoped you'd say that."

"Switch your transmitter to frequency five six niner zero and see if you can help. Other than that, keep your ass down. I can see you through my field optics, and I'll make sure that artillery doesn't hit you."

"Much appreciated. I will keep my freaking ass down. Switching coms now, Ezno out." Randall toggled his com and scanned the area with his field optics. "This is Randall Ezno, 73rd Alliance infantry, calling any Alliance artillery in this sector. I've got coordinates on Reaper high value targets near Hill 751, over. Alliance relief force, do you read?" Another incoming rocket exploded in the field, this time a few hundred yards away. Another red dot in his headset flickered and disappeared. He prayed that he'd be seeing Alliance fighters, Makos and troops soon. "Alliance relief force, do you read?"

No one answered. There was another whooshing sound and explosion about three hundred yards to his right. At least Delta Company's spotters were giving targets to _someone_. "This is Randall Ezno, 73rd Alliance infantry, calling any Alliance artillery in this sector."

Still nothing. "Dammit," he growled. He couldn't waste time like this. The Reaper troops weren't going to wait around while he sat in the mud. "This is Randall Ezno, 73rd infantry, I'm near Hill 751 surrounded by targets, does anybody freaking hear me?" He toggled his com. "Delta, give me that channel again. There's nobody responding to my –"

Then Randall saw it. A distant Reaper target seemed to vanish into thin air and a distant scream reached his ears a moment later. Randall put his field optics away and drew his sniper rifle from his weapons pack.

"Ezno? Ezno, are you there?"

"One second, Delta."

A tall, thin object reappeared out of nowhere, this time about a hundred meters closer. It let out a screeching wail, and it was the same chilling sound that Randall heard for the first time weeks ago watching a combat briefing. His blood ran cold as he aimed his sniper rifle at the gaunt, skeletal figure. He steadied himself and then fired. The creature jerked against the impact and then warped away as Randall toggled his com. "Delta, we've got an inbound banshee. I'm sure of it."

Delta's artillery spotter sounded panicked. "Fuck! I'm not tracking it. Where do you see it?"

"Maybe 800 meters from the hill and coming fast. It just warped away."

"If that banshee's able to warp all the way inside our perimeter –"

"That won't happen. Warn Elias about the banshee. Now. Ezno out." Randall could feel his palms sweat as he fought to keep his breathing steady. During the Alliance's combat briefing weeks before, the sight of banshees rattled him to his core. The way they moved, their biotic assaults, their screams, it all reminded him of the day Cerberus forced he and his friend Inali to fight to the death on planet LV426. These Reaper monsters, he believed, inspired Cerberus to make their own version of a banshee, the killing machine that they created through Inali. Another screeching wail made his hair stand on end. _Come on, come on, where the hell is it?_

He spotted it. Through his scope he could see its sunken glowing eyes, its face like a gargoyle. He fired and struck the creature in the shoulder, and could've sworn that it scowled back at him before it vanished. The icy fear inside him dissolved away, and a simmering, boiling rage took its place. He whispered to himself quietly. "Cerberus failed to kill me on LV426 because Inali fought back. They tried to use her, but they couldn't take her soul away. No matter how hard they fucking tried."

The banshee reappeared, and Randall lined it up in his sights. He could've sworn its face stared directly at him now. Taunted him. "Oh, so the demon thinks this is funny?" growled Randall as he fired for a third time. This time the banshee barely moved against the impact before it disappeared. Randall had no doubt that this banshee sought him out. Marked him for death. For the entire night, Randall's cloak kept him invisible from the Reaper troops on this battlefield, but this banshee moved straight toward him. _So it wants me_ , he thought. _I knew this would happen. All right then. All right, damn you._ His knuckles flexed white as he returned his sniper rifle to his weapons pack. Switching to his assault rifle, he toggled his com and contacted Delta's spotter. "The banshee's coming straight at me. I'm going to kill this thing."

"What? Ezno, that's suicide! Get out of there!"

"No way. I won't let this thing warp into the middle of you guys. Ezno out." _And I will strangle this thing to death with my bare hands if I have to._

Randall didn't need optics to see the banshee's face now. He remembered the saying that the eyes are the window to the soul. This thing didn't have banshee screeched again. Randall felt his hands and his entire body shake as he opened fire with his rifle on full automatic. The banshee stepped backward as sparks flew from the impacts.

"Did you feel that, you piece of shit? Did you?" he shouted as he sprinted to his right. He threw a full salvo of biotic energy and fired his rifle again. The banshee surrounded itself in a reddish cloud of biotic energy as Randall's salvo struck. It whipped its right arm, launching fiery biotic orbs that struck Randall and threw him off his feet. It felt like something sent a wave of force through his body and churned his insides as it passed through him.

 _Son of a bitch!_

Another biotic projectile struck Randall, and then another. He gritted his teeth against the pain, forced himself to raise his rifle and fired on full automatic. Randall's eyes were ablaze with fury. "You're going to die today, banshee! I swear to God!"

The banshee reared its head and wailed again, baring its teeth at Randall like a dragon breathing fire. The banshee's biotic blast felt like it exploded inside him. The entire world spun around Randall as he fell face-first to the ground, and it was only the sunrise's morning shadows that saved his life. Randall saw the banshee's shadow as it warped into the space alongside him, raising its clawed hands to stab him to death. He spun around and fired wildly with his pistol, striking the banshee three times in its torso. The banshee kept standing but staggered backward – _can't anything kill this thing?_ – giving Randall time to run. He sprinted about a hundred feet when he turned and unleashed a biotic storm bubble that twisted the banshee left, and then right. It turned directly toward him and whipped one of its arms at him.

Randall felt the grip of biotic energy grasp his throat. His knees buckled and his eyes widened in shock as he dropped his weapon, hands grasping at an invisible collar. The banshee lifted him into the air. Three feet. Ten feet. Randall kicked his legs as he struggled to breathe.

"No you don't, banshee," he gasped. "Two biotics…can play this game - " Randall regained his focus just enough to throw another salvo of biotic energy. The banshee waved and disintegrated the biotic missiles as though they were tissue paper, its hollow face grinning at him with skull-like teeth. The grip around Randall's throat tightened, but only a little. What followed felt much, much worse. The voice of the banshee, or whatever Reaper intelligence controlled it, spoke inside his head. Or he was losing his mind.

 _YOU AND YOUR KIND ARE NOTHING._

The icy collar pulled tighter with a deliberate unrelenting slowness as the banshee meted out its discipline, withering Randall's strength down to nothing. His eyes glazed with terror as an icy cold settled its way inside him, and Randall flailed his legs a second time. Then a third, weakly. His vision blurred as he gasped for air and fought to stay conscious. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe! In his helmet he heard only fragments of shouts from Delta Company's spotter through heavy static.

The other voice, the monster voice, spoke again in his head with sickening authority and calm. _YOU CANNOT STOP US. DON'T TRY. DON'T...TRY..._

Randall prayed Inali would never know how feeble, afraid, and completely beaten he felt. Randall's lungs burned inside his chest and his eyes rolled upward, hands still clawing to free his throat. In his blurred vision he saw white lines in the morning sky tracing curves in the air.

Now there were more. And more still. A dozen? Two dozen? The curls in the sky turned sharply in a sweeping arc and descended. Straight down. Straight at him and the banshee.

Sanity returned to Randall. A defiant snarl crossed his face as he ducked his head and pulled his limbs close to his body. In his mind's eye he saw the mystified banshee turn its head upward as the full barrage of Alliance artillery shells struck the banshee and sent devastating shockwaves that blew Randall through the air, pummeling his kinetic shield as the explosions rocked around him. He slammed, rolled and tumbled over the ground until he finally stopped.

 _Please tell me that thing's dead. Please God._ As he lost consciousness, Randall gasped in air and raised his hands to protect his throat, still cringing against the cold that he felt all through him.

...

 _Delta Company, in the field near Hill 751_

"How is he?"

Elias and some of the soldiers from Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and Delta Companies stood around a group of medics who tended to Randall Ezno, the Alliance infiltrator whose relentless harrying assaults on the Reapers helped keep them all alive throughout the hellish night. Ezno's body lay sprawled on the ground like a rag doll when they found him, with pock marks, embedded fragments, dirt and deep scratches crisscrossing his body armor. His cracked helmet now lay on the ground nearby. From what Delta's spotters had told Elias, Ezno had been a one-man wrecking crew the entire night.

Most of the Alliance troops were in the process of being evacuated off of the Hill 751. The medics' evac shuttles arrived not long ago, and a group of medics secured Ezno to a stretcher. One of Delta's newest soldiers stood alongside Elias and spoke up. "Don't let him die. Please - just save him." She was the spotter who called in the Danger Close fire mission that killed the banshee, and she was all of 20 years old. "That thing had him, I swear. Ezno was floating in the air kicking his legs, grabbing at his throat…I just didn't know what else to do. Then, when all of those shells hit, I thought for sure I'd killed him."

Elias put his hand on her shoulder. "You didn't have a choice. That banshee would've killed him. You had to act fast, and I would've done the same thing. Exactly the same thing. Your fire mission was right on target. You hit the bullseye, thank God." Elias turned toward the ground where the banshee had stood. Only craters, smoky blackened tree roots, pulverized rocks, mud, and dirt remained. Elias couldn't find the words to say how proud he felt toward his soldiers. _'My' soldiers,_ he thought. _I guess they're 'my' soldiers now. Now that Commander Koch is gone._ Most of the young troops were considered green only days before, but they held their ground throughout the night like seasoned veterans as they fought for every inch against the Reapers.

A medic looked over his shoulder. "He'll make it, but he'll be out of action for a few days. Thank God for his shields and body armor. He wants to speak to your spotter who called in that fire mission, if she's around. And you."

Elias glanced at the young soldier and nodded. "Come on, I wouldn't worry. He doesn't exactly look pissed off."

Randall looked up at them with glazed eyes, through a fog of painkillers and sedatives. "It's great to see you guys."

Elias almost expected the brown-haired Ezno to be about eight feet tall, with the strength of a giant and the endurance of a marathoner. Life size, Ezno looked ordinary, save for his bulky build.

Ezno's eyes focused on the young artillery spotter for a moment. "You saved my life. Thanks."

She offered a humble smile. "You saved a lot of us, too."

Randall smiled back. "Fair trade, then." His eyes turned to Elias. "Lieutenant Commander Ohayon. I wish I'd gotten here sooner, wish I'd done more. I did what I could."

"Call me Elias, and it's good to meet you Randall. You helped more than you know. They evacuated our wounded already, and they're moving the rest of us out now. That was a long night. I don't know what would've happened to us, if not for you. You're one hell of an infiltrator."

Randall chuckled, then squinted his eyes and winced. "Thanks," he whispered slowly, "But you guys on the hill did the heavy lifting, not me. And I'm not an infiltrator."

Elias cocked his head, perplexed. "What do you mean, you're not an infiltrator?"

Randall shook his head. "I'm just a foot soldier. It's a long story."

The medics interrupted them. "Sorry you guys, but he needs to go." They lifted Randall's stretcher and carried him to the Kodiak as some of the soldiers showed their thanks, patting the stretcher and saying things like "Stay strong," and "We owe you, buddy." Others raised their fists in salute and held them up until the Kodiak's hatch closed and the shuttle's engines fired. In seconds, the shuttle disappeared from their sight. Elias and the artillery spotter exchanged a look as the soldiers began to disperse.

"Sir, how could he do all that and _not_ be an infiltrator?"

Elias shook his head. "I'm not here to understand how the Alliance Marines do things."

...

 _Randall Ezno_

Randall awoke in a large tent, full of wounded soldiers on medical cots at the Alliance Marines' mobile medical facility on Camala. Every inch of his body ached. Lifting his hands to his throat, he wished he could forget the banshee's grip and its death-like stare. He saw two familiar faces speaking with a doctor at the edge of the tent: Cherise and Marcus. The doctor nodded and gestured toward Randall, and they walked over and knelt down beside him.

Cherise smiled at him with bright eyes. "Randall, you look great!"

"Nice try Cherise. You know how to light up a room, but I feel like shit."

Marcus joked, "I'll say it then. You look like shit, Randall. But you made it, that's what counts. You got the job done. The Reapers are still keeping the pressure on, but we held the line. Those evacs are going full steam and we'll all be off-planet soon."

Randall felt like he had to make a confession. "Yeah, I made it all right. But I got personal and took on a freaking banshee by myself. That thing took my best shots, beat me to a pulp, and then took its time choking the life out of me. It held me up into the air like a trophy and I heard its voice in my head. What in God's name was I thinking? A spotter from Delta called in an artillery strike and saved my life."

Marcus and Cherise exchanged a look. "Randall, you really think you heard a banshee say things to you?"

Randall paused and lowered his voice. There were plenty of other soldiers within earshot. "Marcus, I'm not kidding and I'm not crazy. It scared the hell out of me, but I wasn't hallucinating."

"All right. We've had some Alliance marines in heavy combat zones treated for effects of Reaper indoctrination. We'll have you checked out too, just to be safe."

"Indoctrination? Dammit, no Reapers are controlling me. If you think you're going to lock me up in the psych ward, you've got another thing coming."

"Just to be safe. That's an order, soldier."

Randall settled into his cot, deflated, and rested an arm across his forehead. "Understood. Well, son of a bitch. Great, just great. You guys think I'm nuts on top of it all."

Cherise spoke with soft sympathy. "Randall, you said you made it personal against the banshee. Was it because of Inali?"

Randall felt the face flush as he glanced at Cherise. He wished that Marcus wasn't sitting alongside her. "How did you know?"

"Back on Amasis, after a while you finally told me about what Cerberus did to her, and about how she used biotics to fight you on that desert planet. And Marcus and I saw how shook up you were during that combat briefing when they told us about banshees. Marcus has had me looking out for you since then. No wonder you made it personal when you saw a banshee up close. "

Randall looked away from them as an embarrassed cloud of shame settled on him. "I can't let that happen again, guys. I swear I won't. Next time, I might not live to tell about it. Or worse, next time I might get somebody else killed because I did something stupid. Marcus, you don't need to have a guardian angel keeping an eye on me."

Marcus bumped a fist on Randall's shoulder. "I'm just looking out for the team, Randall. You've been through a hell of a lot, and you've come a long way. Just keep on, and know that we're all here for you. If you've got something on your mind, you can talk to me or Cherise, got it?"

"Got it." He allowed himself a smile.

"And, one more thing, about that 'next time' you talked about. Cherise and I believe that the 73rd needs a new infiltrator. Lieutenant Commander Ohayon and Lieutenant Heet sure think so. When you get out of this medical tent, I've got an arm patch that'll be yours if you want it. And by the way, you'll be a Corporal, not a Private." Marcus handed Randall a black, square-shaped arm patch. It had sniper crosshairs stitched in gray, with the white stitched outline of a soldier with a sniper rifle, and yellow jagged lines of lightning behind the sniper and crosshairs. Below the image was the word INFILTRATOR. Below that was a motto:

INVISIBLE ∙ SILENT ∙ DEADLY

Randall said aloud, "Well I'll be. Randall Ezno, former Cerberus. Former Alliance foot soldier. Now, an infiltrator with the 73rd Alliance infantry. I like the sound of that."


	8. Randall Hears from Inali

_The title pretty well explains it. After recovering from his injuries defending the Alliance troops on Hill 751, Randall Ezno finally finds out that Inali Renata has come out of her coma._

The Alliance's 73rd infantry division prepared to evacuate Camala as replacement troops were gradually phased in. Their forward operating bases were a bustle of activity, and some soldiers tried to fit in slivers of rest and personal time before the loading their gear onto the enormous troop transports that would send them off to another part of the war.

Corporal Randall Ezno logged off the public access terminal being used by his unit. He shoved its privacy curtain aside and strode away from the soldiers who waited in line.

One of the soldiers saw the haggard look on Randall's face. He turned to the soldier behind him and shook his head. "Man. That must've been bad news. That guy's white as a sheet."

Randall wanted desperately to speak to someone, but knew that he'd burst into tears if he did. He jogged outside into the night. Hell, he almost ran through the exit door. A steady rain fell and he heard a distant rumble that heralded the coming of yet another storm. He saw a group of cargo crates and dashed toward them. He wouldn't be disturbed there, he thought. It didn't look like any fork lifts were anywhere nearby to move them. Yes, thank God, there was a space just big enough for him to fit. No one would see him. He looked around, one last time. The rain already soaked his clothes and hair, but he didn't care.

Randall couldn't hold the emotions back anymore. He couldn't hold them back, and so he let them go. All of them. Tears flooded from his eyes and his chest heaved with sobs. Randall spoke words that he had prayed he might say one day, but never truly believed he would. Night after night, ever since that awful day on desert planet LV426, he had prayed.

"Inali…you're awake."

Tears of relief, happiness and joy poured out of him. Waves of emotion flooded from him and shook him to his core.

"Inali, you're awake," he gasped as the tears ran down his face. "You woke up. You're out of that coma, you're awake. You're finally awake. Thank God. Oh, thank God. Thank you, thank you, thank you God." He pumped his fists hard, a silent private celebration that no one else saw. Sheets of rain fell all around him and washed the tears from his face.

Minutes ago, when he sat at the public access terminal, he had seen a new message from the Alliance's Military Medical Center. This one was marked Secure, and the subject line was a simple one:

STATUS CHANGE – PATIENT JANE DOE #9

When he read that, he had been so afraid, so sure that the doctors were going to tell him that Inali was dying, he thought that he might collapse on the spot. But then he read the first line of the message, and felt his knees weaken immediately.

It read, "PVT Ezno, we are happy to report that Patient Jane Doe #9 has regained consciousness. The patient is in good spirits, and has shown continued improvement."

The message had included a picture of Inali in her hospital bed. He had forgotten how beautiful her green eyes were. Incredibly, she looked almost normal. She looked nothing like the hideous remote-controlled monster that Cerberus used against him months before. Her smile beamed and she held up a sign:

HI RANDALL

I LOVE YOU

MISS YOU

Randall chuckled as the rain poured over him and he imagined Inali posing for the picture. He leaned his head back and let the rain wash across his face. "I love you too, Inali. God, I miss you." He'd probably get some well-deserved jokes for getting caught in a sudden downpour, but so what. For now, he'd enjoy the moment. And he wondered how long it would be until he could see Inali again.


End file.
